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THE OTHER VIRUS Reporters Without Borders.

At the early stages of the pandemic, when doctors in Wuhan were jailed for raising the alarm, censorship spread faster than the virus itself. This campaign was our grain of salt, turning masks into a statement against governments silencing a free press

CLIENT: Reporters Without Borders
Agency: DDB Berlin
My role: Creative direction, concepting, copywriting.

Disclaimer: In retrospect, masks silencing people could be read differently. At the time, they symbolized censorship of truth at the very beginning of the virus.

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Stock photos for a totally non-stock situation.

It took months before this campaign could hit the streets. Information was sparse, controversial, and often unreliable. From RSF we had confirmation of what was happening, but until they could verify it fully, we held the idea back. Proposed in January 2020, it wasn’t published until May, by then, the pandemic had been declared. Still, using only stock photos and countless hours in Photoshop, we built a campaign that put Reporters Without Borders at the forefront of the issue.

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Copyright © 2025 Pablo Iriarte Urdiain.

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