Deadly Dust: How & How's campaign to raise awareness of car tyre micro-plastic pollution

Lisbon-based creative studio, How & How wanted to do something about it by raising awareness of this 'Deadly Dust' and crafting a whole campaign around the very subject.

"It had to have an ethereal quality: one of gentle, delicate horror," explains How & How founder, Cat How. "We used 'pop gothic' colour gradients, fine keylines and dusty textures into chapters describing a journey. But not of a car on the open road: rather what happens to its wheels after it has stopped."

Of course, car tyre particles have been found in all four corners of the Earth – so How & How designed a graphic device based on a globe, whose latitudinal and longitudinal lines rotate to form four wheels. "We wanted to show that what goes around, gets around too," adds Cat.

"From a campaign perspective, the project was problematic as it had multiple messages, dense statistical data and (until recently) no obvious call-to-action. Awareness of car tyre pollution is low, and currently, there is no alternative for tyres. In fact, some of the worst offenders are electric cars whose extra weight means tyre wear is high. We knew we couldn't simply ask people not to use their cars, and even less so their electric ones."

Until that is, a solution presented itself. How & How has recently partnered with The Tyre Collective to raise awareness of its new electrostatic product – something that will address the issue of deadly car tyre dust in future.