Carol Gunn's vibrant Accelerate Action lettering design emphasizes a need for urgency and speed

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, Carol Gunn, and showcase their IWD 2025 Acceleration Action design.

Carol is part of #Typism100, a directory that helps lettering artists attract new clients through showcasing their skills to a wider audience.

"I am proud have my design for International Woman’s Day featured... Always an opportunity to support a good cause, AND to create a fun lettering project.," says Carol.

"I created the first version in December. The problem with completing a project early is you have a lot of time to fool around with other options, so just for fun, here are a couple more. I drew the headline type in Adobe Illustrator, creating unique hand-drawn letters, then added a 'long shadow' effect using the Blend tool, all in Illustrator."

Creating a sense of urgency and action

When asked what Accelerate Action means to her, Carol says: "In the current political climate, women's rights are at greater risk than ever. It is time to join together and continue the fight to control our own destinies."

"When I first began supporting women’s causes, there was no internet. Since then, I have seen the power of social media in spreading ideas worldwide. The IWD website is a rich resource for all fighting for social justice. As a graphic designer, I especially appreciate IWD’s support of women creatives," adds Carol, commenting on the importance of International Women’s Day.

Using a rich and vibrant color palette

In Carol's IWD design, vibrant contrasting colors and a custom font complete with classic cartoon "speed lines" create a feeling of urgency and a sense of action.

Carol explains the process for creating the artwork.

"After one very rough pencil sketch, I started in Illustrator by drawing a "popsicle stick" shape with the pen tool. Duplicating and rotating the shapes, I created a custom font, added "speed lines", and skewed the text at a rising angle, all to give a sense of movement," comments Carol.

Carol also used a rich and vibrant color palette, creating a color overlap effect with layer modes in Photoshop.

And what does Carol do when she is not lettering?

"Just for fun, I like to design and create costumes," says Carol.

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 Accelerate Action for gender equality.