#DoTheSkank
D&AD New Blood 2019 | Use type to celebrate a community.
Monotype set the challenge of celebrating a community of your choice through type. The outcome needed a typographic led integrated graphic design campaign that uses type to celebrate the community and showcase what makes it unique.
I decided to choose the Ska community. A collection of people who love the music genre and has since been engrained in pop-culture for nearly 70 years. When you dance to Ska, you Skank; this led me to my creative execution.
To many who are unfamiliar with Ska, the world has forgot about the Skank, and through the power of pop-culture the word has now developed a new found meaning that has negative connotations.
My final outcome was to take back the Skank and throttle its original meaning to the forefront, through the use of digital posters, we would showcase its new found meaning bursting into a typographic flourish and reveal its original meaning whilst exposing the audience to the Ska inspired typographic style.
New meaning compared to its original meaning.
Posters
The posters for the #DoTheSkank campaign are inspired by the hand painted signage found in Kingston, Jamaica and classic Ska record covers. Each poster showcases the original meaning of "Skank" and shows the cultural aesthetic of the genre.
Static versions of the #DoTheSkank posters.
Beat Street
We will also be opening up ‘Beat Street’ over the summer. This will be located on Portobello Road, the cultural home of the Windrush Generation and will act as a museum and music venue that puts Ska front and centre.
Beat Street is named after Orange Street in Kingston, Jamaica. This street coined the name of 'Beat Street' due to its influence of record shops that sold Ska music.
Posters are inspired by the hand drawn poster boards found in Jamaica.
Scamp mock-up of the Beat Street store & reference images of Orange Street AKA 'Beat Street' in Kingston, Jamaica.
Online Presence
Ska is for everyone. So we will promote people to film themselves ‘Skanking’ with the #DoTheSkank hashtag. Each day we will update our website and showcase the public on our ‘Wall of Skanks’, further solidifying the sense of unity that is deeply sewn into the Ska community.
The public can also find specially curated Spotify playlists, showcasing the breadth of Ska music out there from all 3 generations of Ska, giving them something to listen to when they #DoTheSkank.
#DoTheSkank landing page.
Spotify Playlists.
