Gender equality can't be achieved if everyone sits on the sidelines and hopes for it
Creatives play an important role in elevating International Women's Day (IWD) through helping amplify awareness raising. Via their creative contributions, audiences worldwide are engaged through collective action to help forge gender equality.
Each year the IWD Lettering Challenge, in association with the global Typism community, calls for creative designs that support an annual IWD focus and showcase the impressive talent of creators.
Here, we shine a spotlight on one such creative, Melanie Garber, and showcase their IWD 2025 #AccelerationAction design.
Melanie Garber is part of #Typism100, a directory that helps lettering artists attract new clients through showcasing their skills to a wider audience.
Creating an action-packed design
For Melanie's exciting IWD design, she wanted to focus on the word "action" and give her creation what she describes as an "almost in-your-face feel".
"I like this style as it has a bit of that "pow" comic book feel while still being somewhat subtle," explains Melanie.
Explaining her design process
Melanie does all of her designing in Procreate. She explains the process behind her IWD design.
"This is a style I've been doing recently, so I had a sense of what I was going for in my head before starting. I draw each letter individually and then piece them together, adjusting some letters that seem off balance. Lastly is choosing colors - which usually takes me a while - but this was a color palette I used previously with this style and I just loved it so much I wanted to apply it to this piece as well," says Melanie.
Taking action to achieve equality
Melanie explains what it means to Accelerate Action.
"Gender equality can never be achieved if everyone sits on the sidelines and "hopes" for it. We need to take action to make it happen. And while there has been progress over time, it's been slow (from IWD's website: "At the current rate of progress, it will take 134 years, which is roughly five generations from now, to reach full gender parity") and sometimes feel like we're going backwards. We need to take action to increase the momentum towards gender parity so we don't have to wait 134 years," says Melanie.
Melanie shares what International Women’s Day means to her: "It’s a day to celebrate and spotlight women worldwide and in different fields to raise awareness and promote gender equality."
Why not share your creative talent with the world?
Post your creation on your social media feeds using the hashtags #IWD2025 #AccelerateAction #IWDtypism for a chance to be featured.
Together, let's #AccelerateAction for gender equality.