BLACK HISTORY BLACK VOICES
Social Media Graphic/Website Thumbnail
Black History Black Voices is an initiative for the largest historical society in the country— The Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS). MNHS was looking to create a place where people could easily access Black history, programming and resources. Since I had been one of the main people at the society to create quality Black content and solicit Black creators, I was given the opportunity to creative direct the branding, website and online programming to keep audiences engaged with the brand during COVID and beyond.
It was imperative that the branding be current, accessible and visually striking to convey the power of the history we were presenting. Moreover, it was crucial that we be able to use the branding across all platforms to create graphics for native social, digital ads, homepage headers, YouTube thumbnails and more. For this, we worked with the talented owner and creative director, Theresa Moses of Blackbird Revolt. To start, I provided still images from my photographic archive of Black Minnesotans as well as historical images and video stills as a guide for her to create her signature line illustrations to later use in graphics for the brand.
Illustrations based on my still photography of Black Minnesotans and historical images of notable
Black leaders and civil servants from MNHS collections and national archives.
Header for website landing page.
OVERIVEW VIDEO
“Young children of color need to understand that their ancestors were not victims, they were victors, and that despite the things that they suffered, they gained for us a humanity that only we can claim for ourselves… and that’s what power is.”
Director/Co-producer/Co-writer: Andrea Ellen Reed Co-producer/Co-writer: Julianna Olsen
Videographers: Angela Jimenez, Ned Hurley & Austin Brown Editor: Ned Hurley
The overview video featured video from a number of videos I directed for Historic Fort Snelling, #MyHistoryMatters and Storied for MNHS. My co-producer/co-writer, Julianna Olsen and I, combed through the transcripts of the videos to create to right narrative for the piece. This piece ran on social media and as a digital ad for the project and also served as the lead in for the landing page of the project.
WEBSITE
Site graphics: Dan Sattler-Reimer/Meleck Davis Web design: Meleck Davis
The website serves as a central hub Black historical content exclusive to MNHS including MNopedia articles and video series including Storied, Black History Minute, The Black Liberation Movement, the MLK series and the Juneteenth video series.