Brand Strategy / Design System / Art Direction / Social Media

Supporting a community to empower young voices.

Challenge

Hamilton Youth Poets (HYP) was created in 2012 and has since grown into an arts organization that offers Hamilton Youth a space to tell their stories through spoken word, verse, multimedia and poetry slam. Their annual festival is the celebration and culmination of the poets’ work in a space that celebrates the diversity and passion of the community. HYP needed a visual system to support their current identity, promote the festival and create an experience that the youth could own and be proud of. Budget is always a challenge for community organizations who are primarily funded by sponsors and grants. Understanding the limitations of the organization’s resources we focused on creating a strategy that would be budget and skillset conscious. Ensuring that the HYP team could run with the assets and quickly create anything they might need—even last minute.

Solution

Our collaborative process allowed us to work with HYP to discover the strategy that effectively supported their initiative. This led us to create a modular that could be easily formatted to work with the various media needs of the organization. Humanfolk created tools and workflows that allowed the HYP team to create additional media based on the promotional campaign we created for them. For us, this project was about being the biggest contribution we could be to HYP and the youth they serve. Check out their monthly poetry slams and the Poetic License festival in May 2020 which we will be helping to launch again this coming year.

Results

A flexible, modular visual system that supports festival promotion and ongoing programming

Easy-to-use tools that empower the HYP team to create assets independently and on short notice

Consistent visual presence across social, print, and event materials

Reduced reliance on external production through skillset-appropriate templates and workflows

A celebratory, youth-owned visual experience that reflects the diversity of the community

Team

Dave Dick

Paul Wilcken

Mack

Posters for Hamilton Youth Poets presents 'Louder than a Bomb' in Canada, taking place from May 3rd to 10th, 2019. The posters feature photos of young individuals with colorful design elements and text, displayed on a yellow background.
Digital illustration of a Facebook page and Instagram post promoting the Hamilton Youth Poets' Poetic License event from May 3rd to 10th, 2019, featuring stylized photos of two young women with colorful graphics and text.
A brick wall with graffiti and posters. The posters promote an event called 'Poetic License' happening from May 3rd to 10th, 2019, with a green silhouette of a girl with a crown. A person riding a blue bicycle is partially visible in the foreground, with only the arm and part of the bicycle showing, and a green bottle on the ground in front of the wall.