With a tiny budget to tackle an enormous challenge, we had to come up with an idea so creative it could live on its own. If Islam was being misconstrued for being violent and Muslims were treated as a travel threat, merely claiming the opposite would’ve never sufficed. For our idea to be impactful, we needed evidence from within Islam that could travel the world to spread the word when Muslims couldn’t.

The idea was to transform passports to messages of peace, tolerance and acceptance.

Accordingly, we looked into Islam’s Holy Book, The Quran, as the sole source of and true bearer of the essence of this religion, for verses that relay this message. We then decided to design passport holders that carry these messages in English, the world’s most commonly used language. They would be known as the Skins of Peace.

To make the idea as clear and easy as possible, the online launch film illustrated the whole story while enticing people to contribute their designs to the website. To ensure consistency of the message and product, we provided people with the Skins of Peace specs including the size, 15 quotes to choose from and the mandatory hashtag to be part of the design.

To populate the launch, we spearheaded the process with a few in-house designs. These were a variety of Arabesque, modern, calligraphy, geometric and illustration styles. The colors were bright and attractive. After all, although they’re carrying a noble message, the skins needed to be aesthetically pleasing and fashionable.

The production process was also initiated for these designs. A process that took a couple of weeks to perfect a high-quality finishing while making sure legibility and colors are exactly in line with people’s expectations for their designs.

In less than a week after the launch, public engagement has been great as we have already received more than 150 artworks from various amateur and professional artists from over 83 countries around the world. The official website has registered hundreds of daily visitors. The reach was aided by the wide regional and international earned media exposure that the idea received. Campaign Magazine, Arabian Marketer, Creativity Online, The Culture Pub and The Drum’s round-up for the most creative work to name a few helped deliver the message in English, Arabic and French to expose and mobilize even more people around this cause. Online listening reports have registered a more than 90% positive sentiment around the idea signaling great prospects for achieving the desired impact in shaping public opinion and ameliorating society as a whole.