This blog is available in Easy Read. You can download it as a PDF, see the mobile version here or listen to the Easy Audio version here.
When benefits are under threat, disabled people often feel the impact first — and hardest. Right now, many people in the UK are feeling anxious about proposed changes to disability benefits. Trying to stay informed, have your say in government consultations, and work out how it all might affect you and your family is difficult. Doing it without resources you can fully understand is even harder.
That’s why we’re releasing the first in a new series of images to help people write about disability benefits and government consultations. I’d like to give you a behind-the-scenes glimpse into how they were made.
Using EasyMaker to share information quickly
We noticed several of our customers creating Easy Read materials in response to the Pathways to Work Green Paper. One campaign that stood out was #TakingThePIP, who used EasyMaker to quickly create Easy Read information for their open letter to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. Led by deaf, disabled and/or neurodivergent public figures, the campaign has gained national media attention. You can find out how to support their campaign at https://takingthepip.co.uk/
EasyMaker is all about making it quick and easy to create your own accessible materials — and this was a perfect example. It allowed the campaign team to move fast and make sure supporters with learning disabilities could understand and take part.
Developing our ideas
Looking at the #TakingThePIP resources — and similar ones from other customers — the Creative Team at Photosymbols started thinking about where our images could do more. We focused on helping people explain PIP, benefit cuts, and how to feed back to Government.
We brought those ideas to our Expert Advisers, Matt and Grace. Between them, they had a list of ideas: images that were specific enough to feel real, but flexible enough to be useful in lots of different contexts. Grace is an ideas woman and a brilliant visual thinker — she helped bring clarity and detail to our early ideas. Matt lives and breathes representation. He looked over our early choices for actors and poses to make sure they were fair, realistic and true to life.
Our new Creative Team
We’re very lucky at Photosymbols to have two new members in our Creative Team: Steve, whose person-centred photography has helped our actors with learning disabilities shine for over a decade, and Kat, who has spent her career so far using her design expertise to work alongside marginalised communities. Featuring Steve’s photographs and Kat’s exceptional skill in visual storytelling, we’re sharing a batch of images that we hope will be useful not only for today’s conversations about potential changes to benefits, but for all the work that follows.
It’s early days for the new Creative Team who have only been in force for a few weeks — but we’re excited to keep bringing you fresh ideas to inspire your Easy Read. All of Kat and Steve’s images are now available to both Photosymbols library and EasyMaker customers. We love seeing what you make with them.
We’d encourage you to check out the #TakingThePIP campaign — and to keep using Easy Read as a tool for clarity, connection, and action. If there’s a topic you’d like to cover, or an image you’d love to see in the library, let us know. You can always reach us at ask@photosymbols.com.
