Jazz & Race
Company: SFJAZZ
Year: 2021
Copy: Rusty Aceves
Design: Nicole DeVera
Design for SFJAZZ’s 2021 celebration of Black History Month. To honor this month, SFJAZZ curated a number of themed playlists centered around the intersection of jazz and race, highlighted several grassroots organizations who are doing work in various spheres to benefit Black communities in the Bay Area, and ended the month with a panel discussion, with the hope that the discussion of racial inequity and injustice will continue well beyond February.
The visual direction for this campaign uses closely cropped photography set in a duotone in reference to the tinted photography of classic Blue Note designs, but modernized with the use of vibrant colors. The bold, statement typeface used is by Vocal Type Co., which was inspired by protest posters made during the Civil Rights Movement.
The month culminated in an online panel discussion called Jazz & Race, which examined the current state of jazz, race, and gender, hosted by educator and author Claude Steele. Panelists for this discussion included four world-renowned artists and writers with unique perspectives on the subject, including NEA Jazz Master Terri Lyne Carrington, music critic Nate Chinen, activist Angela Davis, and multi-instrumentalist Rhiannon Giddens. A variety of assets were created to promote this event including a promotional trailer, social media imagery, digital advertising for promotional partners, and a set of pre-show slides that ran for fifteen minutes prior to the event.
