rār (pronounced rare) builds authentic campaigns, utilizing a creative mix of marketing and public relations/social strategies. Their customized solutions help clients to engage global multicultural communities and consumers.

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I designed the campaign and created the tagline with Fredrick Douglass as my inspiration. He is the most photographed American of the nineteenth century. Douglass despised drawings portraying Black people with exaggerated features — slack-jawed expressions, or as giddy slaves. Douglass knew these images only served to reinforce white supremacy by presenting Black people as simple-minded and subjugated. He realized that by posing for dozens of portraits, he could show what Black freedom and dignity looked like. Each photograph allowed him to control his identity and be seen as a human on equal footing with all men.

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For Black History Month I chose simple clean portraits on a black background to remove all the noise from the original images. I wanted the viewer to linger on each face and see strength and beauty. After trying more traditional African American Pride colors I settled on black and yellow, because it afforded the most contrast in the composition and it would instantly relate to the Black Lives Matter movement.