Remarkable HIV Magazine

Magazine printed with blood from HIV + people

The Life Ball, is one of the world’s largest AIDS charity events, hosted annually is in Vienna. Vienna is the hometown to Vangardist’s, a magazine company that has printed 3,000 special copies of its spring edition dedicated to HIV+ people. The magazine set out to team up with Saatchi & Saatchi Switzerland to brainstorm ideas to trigger debate and raise awareness of the disease. Vangardist used blood donated by three HIV positive individuals – a gay man, a heterosexual man and a mother. Their donated blood was infused with ink in the special edition copies. Ason Romeyko, a global chief creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi said, “We wanted to take the image of HIV patients beyond the gay stereotype. Hence the combination of a gay man, a heterosexual man and a mother add a deeper dimension to this.” “By injecting the blood from HIV positive people into the printing presses, we transformed the media into the root of the stigma itself," said Romeyko. "Every word, line, picture and page is printed with the combination of blood and ink.” The magazine is packaged in a plastic wrap for legal reasons, but the wrapping also serves as an added dimension to the project, inviting readers to overcome their pwn prejudice when opening the sealed wrapper. "The legal restrictions advised us to not just distribute the magazine without a warning," explained Romeyko. "There is nothing like a 'restriction' to heighten creativity. Hence the re-sealable wrapper which actually makes the communication so very much stronger." I love the creativity of this project that has such a strong underlying meaning, hitting all the most important prejudice and stigmas our society has about HIV+ people.