Lew’Lara\TBWA’s created Lego-style building bricks called “Braile Bricks” which include the Braille alphabet’s six-dot configuration as a way of using play to teach sight-impaired children how to read in a project for the Dorina Nowill Foundation For the Blind.
It’s one of those solutions to a problem that seems so obvious you wonder how no one has thought of it before. As it turns out, someone did: as a similar product, called Tack-Tiles has been around for awhile and is available in five languages. Since Portuguese isn’t one of them, however, we’re going to give Lew’Lara\TBWA the benefit of the doubt here.
The two-minute “Meet Braille Bricks” introduces the item via the story of Anny, a young girl with strong nystagmus. When she first started bringing her Braille typewriter to school, her teachers told her mother that they couldn’t do much to help her since they didn’t know how to use it. But the Braille bricks not only helped Anny learn in the classroom, but to integrate with other students as well.
Lew’Lara\TBWA ran a limited run of the educational toy for about 300 children. Since Dorina Nowill released the blocks’ design under a Creative Commons license, it seems likely that they will be more widely available soon (as long as the makers of Tack-Tiles don’t object).
The campaign also includes a website inviting viewers to create their own Braille messages with blocks and a social effort around the #BrailleBricksforAll hashtag.
Credits:
Agency: Lew’Lara\TBWA
Client: Dorina Nowill Foundation for The Blind
Product: Braille Bricks Project
Title: Braille Bricks
CCO: Felipe Luchi e Manir Fadel
CEO: Márcio Oliveira
Creatives: Leandro Pinheiro e Ulisses Razaboni
Online Creatives: Leandro Pinheiro, Ulisses Razaboni, Felipe Pimentel e Cainã Meneses
Account Team: Ricardo Barros e Fernanda Mariano
Planning Team: Renata d’Avila e Anderson Sales
Media Team: Luiz Ritton, Eduardo Shinohara, Suellen Kiss, Amanda Moura e Danielle Farhat
Social Media: Nancy Sestini
Art buyer: Ale Sarilho, Sabino, Caio Lobo e Natasha Latronico
Piece Producer: Claudio Rocha
Photographer: Rodrigo Ribeiro
Project Manager: Monalisa Paduin
Agency TV Producer Luzia Oliveira, Marcella Pappiani e Angela Felicio
Agency Production: Marcos Pedra e Alexandro Coelho
Film Production Company: Landia
Film Director: Nixon Freire
Executive Producer: Carolina Dantas e Sebastian Hall
Producer Director: Fabiano Ramos
Director Of Photograpy: Nixon Freire
Art Director: Dartagnan Zavalla
Editor Diego Merulla
Finisher: Henrique Gomes
Post-Production: Rafael Fernandes
Sound Production: MugShot
Digital Production: BASE
Client: Eliana Cunha, Daniela Coutelle, Priscila Saraiva