Pentagram's identity for Period Equity. All images courtesy of Pentagram.com

Pentagram fight the tampon tax

Paula Scher and co produce the identity for America's first policy institute dedicated to advancing menstrual access

Should tampons be subject to sales tax? Not according to a growing number of campaigners across the world, who believe feminine hygiene products should be treated as medical necessities, which are not subject to tax mark-up in many countries.

Canada has already scrapped its tax on tampons, and groups in Britain and America hope to see the policy adopted more widely. Now one of the world’s leading design studios has thrown its weight behind the cause.

 

Pentagram's identity for Period Equity
Pentagram's identity for Period Equity

Pentagram’s Paula Scher and her team have created an identity for Period Equity, a new non-profit organisation that is the USA’s first and only law and policy institute dedicated to advancing menstrual access, affordability and safety in the U.S.

Scher, who is more closely associated with graphic design than copywriting, even changed the group’s name, switching in the word “Period”, which lends itself to neat punctuation puns in US English, to change it from “the slightly off-putting Menstrual Equality,” Pentagram explains.

 

Pentagram's identity for Period Equity
Pentagram's identity for Period Equity

“Scher says when the group ultimately achieves its goal, the name can be inverted to “Equity, Period,”” the agency adds.

Until then, it will be reproducing this sharp, red, white and black identity across its stationery, website, tote bags, t-shirts and more.

 

Pentagram's identity for Period Equity
Pentagram's identity for Period Equity

For more inspired visual communication order a copy of our newly updated book A Smile in the Mind, which features an interview with Scher’s colleague Michael Bierut and much else besides.