Be seen. Be heard. Be remembered
Toronto artist Raymond Helkio, in a video interview with publisher John McCullagh, talks about his graphic design work for PositiveLite.com and about living with HIV.
Since its inception in 2009, PositiveLite.com has relied on social media and word of mouth to let potential readers know of our existence. And we have been very successful in that regard. However, not everyone uses social media and our experience tells us that there are many Canadians living with HIV who are not familiar with our online HIV magazine.
To remedy this, we decided that we needed to undertake some promotion of the magazine in more traditional ways, such as displaying posters about our site at places where HIVers are likely to see them - like AIDS service organizations, doctor’s offices, clinics, pharmacies and community centres as well as at workshops, conferences and other special events.
To this end, we needed a graphic designer. And who better to turn to than Raymond Helkio, who has long applied his artistic skills to benefit charitable and not-for-profit organizations within the HIV and LGBTQ communities.
Ray is a lively and engaging HIV-positive gay man who not only designed posters and hand-out cards for PositiveLite.com but also consented to my interviewing him both about his graphic design work generally and about his own HIV story. You can see this interview in the eight-minute video below, along with images of the posters he designed for us.
You can view more examples of Ray’s work on his website http://raymondhelkio.com
- Tags: AIDS, gay men, health, HIV, HIV+, HIV-positive, John McCullagh, living with HIV, personal stories of people living with HIV, PositiveLite_com, posters, promotion, publicity, Raymond Helkio, September 2012, seroconversion, social media, Toronto
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About the Author
John McCullagh - Publisher
John McCullagh is the publisher of PositiveLite.com. He's an HIV-positive gay man who’s been active in Toronto's LGBTQ community since immigrating to Canada from his native Britain in 1975. A social worker by profession, he's worked in government and the not-for-profit sector in both front-line and management positions. His experience includes research, policy analysis, strategic planning, program development, project management, and communications.
In the early years of the AIDS epidemic, John was a counsellor at the Toronto Counselling Centre for Lesbians and Gays (now known as David Kelley Services), an organization he co-founded and which was one of the first agencies in Toronto to offer professional counselling to those infected with and affected by HIV.
Now retired, John volunteers with the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT) and is a board member of CATIE, Canada’s national HIV and Hepatitis C knowledge broker.
John regularly contributes articles to PositiveLite.com about his personal experiences of living with HIV and about issues relevant to Canada's HIV and LGBTQ communities.
