ABOUT

During my time as a graphic designer for Leeds University Union
I was responsible for creating 2015’s identity for the annual ‘Black History Month’ or ‘BHM’. I recognised this as a great opportunity for me to apply my own style and creativity to one of the union’s largest and anticipated events. According to my clients, previous branding of BHM had become far too generic and was beginning to lack the heart and soul of the event. So the brief was to design the whole event from scratch and tell the students of Leeds what BHM is all about.

After discussing what BHM meant to my clients, it became clear that this year’s identity was to develop mostly from the African culture; really make the students stop and think about black history and what it means to them no matter what their background. I knew that if I was to succeed in branding such a sensitive and wide-spread event it had to develop conceptually, not just aesthetically. Black History Month is an immensely diverse event, meaning different things to different people. It therefore made sense to keep the identity as simple as possible; making it flexible and able to be applied across a wide range of deliverables and contexts.