Posters designed by college students to encourage more organ donors have received support from NHS staff.
Video Donor website founder Dean Jones set a project for year one graphic design students from Barking and Dagenham College to create the posters over six weeks.
The winning design of a heart shared between two outstretched hands, by student Madara Mozga, will be have 500 copies printed and put up around Barking and Dagenham along with 250 copies of each of the two runner-up designs.
Dean said the posters were so good that Rachel Partington, a specialist nurse for NHSBT Organ Transplant Team, who was at the award ceremony said she was in talks to get them branded with the NHS logo.
He added: “I wasn’t sure what was going to come out of the project. When I saw the winner’s poster in large I just thought what that student had done was create something from nothing. She drew it all, from the hands to the heart.
“It was very simple but it worked. Posters have only two to three seconds to make an impact and the winner’s does that.”
Dean, 35, of Burdetts Road Dagenham, said he was so impressed he had already decided to run the project again next year.
He said organ donation remained a “taboo” for some communities and added he thought people’s reactions to the posters “will be a bag of mixed thoughts and feelings”.
The winner received a £50 Debenhams voucher and trophy while runners up Billy Edwards and Jade Williams each received two smaller awards.
Visit videodonor.com to find out more organ donation.
Click on the link below to see a gallery of the winning designs.
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