Covid-19 Information for Migrants

The Mayor of London’s office leads public communications across the capital, reaching one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse populations of any city in the world. London is home to communities speaking hundreds of languages, and effective public communication in the capital requires more than translation: it requires cultural understanding and genuine accessibility.

Doctors of the World is an international humanitarian organisation that provides medical care to vulnerable and excluded people, including migrants and refugees who face barriers to accessing mainstream health services. Their involvement in this commission reflects the particular vulnerability of migrant communities during a public health emergency.

In the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Mayor of London commissioned Nutmeg Productions, working alongside Doctors of the World, to create a series of clear and concise animations signposting key healthcare information to migrants in London. The films needed to reach communities whose first language was not English, and to represent the diversity of those communities visually as well as linguistically.

The brief required speed as well as sensitivity, these films were needed urgently, at a moment when access to clear health information could have a direct impact on people’s safety and wellbeing.

We developed a series of animations using a neutral colour palette and clean, simple graphics designed to communicate clearly across cultural contexts. The visual approach was deliberately inclusive, avoiding imagery that would feel specific to any one cultural background, while remaining warm and human rather than coldly diagrammatic.

The animations were produced in English and then translated into a further ten languages – Bulgarian, Turkish, Bengali, Kurdish, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Traditional Chinese and Vietnamese – covering the major language communities among migrants in London at the time of the campaign. Each version was reviewed for cultural as well as linguistic accuracy.

The films were distributed across social media platforms to reach communities where they were active, at a time when digital information was one of the few reliable channels available during lockdown.

The Covid-19 animation series gave the Mayor of London and Doctors of the World a rapid, multilingual public health communications asset, deployed across social media to reach migrant communities in London at one of the most critical moments of the pandemic.

The commission demonstrates Nutmeg’s ability to deliver multilingual animation quickly, sensitively and at the scale a major public health campaign requires, working with a commissioner whose remit is the entire capital and whose audience spans dozens of languages and cultural backgrounds.