The least visible franchises can be given a new voice through the power of good branding and great graphic design. Will it do the same for the voiceless, the invisible, the institutionally disenfranchised? Can well-executed design change the lives of the homeless?

A new project in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, is trying to find out. A collaboration between artist Kenji Nakayama and Christopher Hope, the Signs for the Homeless project exchanges handwritten panhandling signs for colorfully illustrated, eye-catching recreations that aim to give the homeless a power that most of us take for granted: The power to be noticed.

“Homelessness is the white noise of the community,” Hope tells Co.Design. “We live in a world that is so saturated by design and branding that these homemade begging signs just get drowned out.” But the tattered signs that the people on our streets wave a thousand times a day to catch our attention aren’t just for begging. As Hope is quick to point out, many homeless signs don’t ask for money or food at all. Instead, they are works of self-expression: Statements by a human being about the world they live in.

“I see signs all the time where the homeless make a political or religious statement,” says Hope. “Many are not using their signs to make money at all. They’re using them as a voice, to reach out.”

It’s a voice that largely goes unheard. Culturally, most of us don’t want to think of the message scrawled in Sharpie on a mottled piece of cardboard as the voice of another person. In fact, homelessness seems like such an intractable social problem that even compassionate people simply put their blinders on when they walk down the street. To even glance at a homeless person’s sign could be taken as a sign of engagement, and the prospect of engaging with a person you don’t know how to help is heartbreaking. So we treat them like ghosts.

Many are not using their signs to make money at all. They’re using them as a voice, to reach out.

What Kenji and Hope want to do with their Signs for the Homeless is rip those blinders off, with graphic design too good to be denied. “We want people to see these signs, and be curious about the person holding it,” says Hope. “We want them to go up and say, ‘Nice sign, where’d you get it?'”

An advocate for the welfare of the homeless who spends his days helping people who live on the streets, Hope says anyone can approach him for a new sign. When someone approaches Hope, they’ll then work with Kenji to come up with a design that suits them. “They tell us what they want,” says Hope. “What they want the sign to say, what colors they like, even maybe what kind of lettering they want.” Once a sign is complete, Hope then interviews the recipient, photographs them, and gives them a small donation of around $20.