An aspiring designer will soon see her work on the branding for a Highland charity – and hopes it will encourage people to reach out for help.
Emily Clark, a visual communication student at Inverness College UHI, has created the new logo for Counselling Highlands.
The charity approached the college for help to come up with a new eye-catching logo and corporate identify in an attempt to raise awareness of its services
Board members, counsellors and volunteers then voted on their preferred design, with 19-year-old Miss Clark’s selected as the winner.
Her logo depicts the idea of a relationship being about personal growth.
‘Stigma’ around counselling must be broken down
Miss Clark, from Dingwall, said: “Working on a live brief like this is hugely beneficial as you get to work directly with the client and hear their feedback.
“It’s been an amazing opportunity to learn and develop. It was such an interesting and exciting project to be involved in, and to have my designs used in real life is just an honour. I’m really proud to have my logo chosen.
“Receiving counselling is an important issue that has a lot of stigma attached to it. The stigma of receiving counselling needs broken down.”
Counselling Highland is part of a national network of counselling services under the umbrella of Relationship Scotland.
Manager Sarah Speakman said: “We find people come to us in crisis, but we want to people to come to us before that. Talking about your relationships and developing your relationships is healthy.
“People still approach relationship counselling as if it’s something to be ashamed about and we need to change that as there’s so much value in seeking relationship support.
“It was an absolute privilege to work with the HND Visual Communication students. The whole process was really thought-provoking and inspiring for us. The students were so interested, thoughtful in their approach and produced an incredible standard of work. It was so hard to pick a winner, but we loved Emily’s concept and it’s inspired lots of new ideas.”