Tell us about yourself:
I’m a graphic designer living in Los Angeles, currently working full time as a Senior Designer at Uninterrupted. I’ve been working professionally for about 8 years or so, the vast majority of that time working in-house and taking on freelance work on the side. A lot of my freelance projects are centered around sports or music in some way, a lot of it with friends. Ranging from branding to flyers, apparel, album artwork, title design, etc.
What is the inspiration behind your poster design?
In a conversation with Rick Rubin, Kendrick said that his aim with the track “Alright” was to create something uplifting but also aggressive. Not playing the victim, but something we can stick our chest out to. Knowing that it’s obvious how the song sort of organically became a protest anthem.
This poster aimed to create something equally simple and uplifting through clear language and messaging but also loud and imposing by way of stark color contrast and typographic motifs. LA was also a big inspiration, as Kendrick’s hometown and the site of many historic marches for justice over the past few years.
Why do you love being creative?
Being creative to me is an opportunity to have fun and do what we want. If there’s something we want to see, we can make it. We can share our one-of-one perspectives, and that feels as full of purpose as it is fun for me.
Tell us about your experiences in the design world…
As of late, being Black in the creative industry has meant navigating what feels right and what doesn’t—as far as who I want to work with and what type of work it is. We have people coming to us for our perspective, now more than ever, and so it’s been about being selective with who I want to work with and being aligned with what they’re trying to do.
How can we create a more inclusive design world and ensure that Black people are represented?
I think we gotta start close. When good projects present themselves, we’ve gotta put the homies on. If I need an illustrator, I’m tapping into my friends first. If I need an animator, got a friend for that too. Maybe I can’t take this next gig that comes my way, but I have a friend that might. We gotta tap into our networks as much as possible, and grow from there.
In general… How can we make more equity or equality for us?
It’s already started. We’ve come a long way, we just gotta keep doing our thing.
