Cut The Quarantine wants you to chop your pandemic locks and help children experiencing hair loss

There have been many notable changes over the past year, and one of those changes might be to do with your hair (and mountains of it). With many now donning lengthy do’s having not visited the barbers, the nonprofit Locks of Love has announced the launch of its Cut The Quarantine campaign – an initiative made in partnership with creative agency Hook that turns this particular side effect of the pandemic into a film and website, aiming to help children experiencing medical hair loss.

The campaign is an extension of the work achieved by Locks of Love – a charity that currently has recipients in all 50 American states and provides custom-made hair prosthetics to children up to the age of 21, which includes those who have suffered hair loss from medical conditions including alopecia, burn trauma and cancer treatment. For Cut The Quarantine, the campaign hopes to inspire its audience to do something good and donate at least 10 inches of hair, in turn making the process feel “a bit less daunting”, explains Ben Song, senior producer at Hook.

“The last year with quarantine has been a seriously challenging time for a lot of people,” says senior copywriter Rob Liggins. “In reflecting on this universal moment, we found a unique, unexpected, and fun way to bring people together to make a difference in someone else’s life. Cut the Quarantine is a self-initiated, pro-bono project that was inspired by people growing out their hair longer than ever during quarantine.”

Encouraging viewers to chop off their locks, the animated video is displayed in an inviting, hand-drawn and playful style. All of which is created in-house by Hook and led by motion designer Alex Carey. “With the serious undertone of the pandemic, we wanted to incorporate a visual playfulness within our drawings and animations that would be refreshing to everyone during this time,” adds designer Jenny Dodge. “The lighthearted style we created lends itself well to the story-driven animation. We hope its narrative provides a sense of comfort for our audience in making a major decision like cutting off at least 10 inches of hair.”

The film is inspired by classic storybook and comic artists such as Shel Silverstein, Quentin Blake, and Saul Steinberg. Additionally, the Hook team turned towards more recent artists like Molly Fairhurst and Jeffrey Cheung. “These artists felt similar to us in that they invoke a sense of warmth, nostalgia, and most importantly, playfulness with their hand-drawn style,” notes Jenny.

Although the animation is a strong focus point for the campaign, the hand-drawn style has been drawn out across all platforms – which works harmoniously with a set of fun and legible typefaces, such as Boston Angel. “The typeface is also a friendlier and modern take on traditional serif typefaces, in our humble opinion,” adds art director Cheri Wang. “We wanted the variation between our typeface and sketchy illustration style to pay homage to the storybook references we were first inspired by at the beginning of this project.”

You can learn more about Cut The Quarantine here, and more about Hook, here.