Watts t-shirt project : an art director’s affect on youth disenfranchisement

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate the role of an Art Director in a forward-looking design initiative for youth, where the objective was to enhance motivation and design engagement in a cross-cultural collaboration. The main approach was to conduct most of the ideation and production in person to emphasize spontaneity in the modularity of the process. This allowed each participant to be a part of influencing the shaping of the project. As the Art Director for this thesis, I have acted as an artistic guide in the collaboration, highlighting youth empowerment in an urban street culture design concept. I created four short documentary films, which were used as communication between the two different cultures in the development stages.

The project is a design for social innovation initiative, where all participants contribute with their design capacity. Established organizations have provided a platform for the selected youth creatives from South Central Los Angeles, U.S.A., for visibility of their craft and mission statement in a t-shirt design. The artwork for the t-shirt was created by a collective of youth in Helsinki, Finland, assembled by the youth organization Children of the Station, whereby the final product will be distributed by Helsinki sneaker- and lifestyle store, The New Room, in June 2024. The profit will be invested in screen printing equipment for the youth in Watts.

The core voice throughout, was youth speaking to youth. As street gang culture is on the rise in Finland, youth from the epicenter of the problem in South Central Los Angeles, in an area called Watts, are showing youth in Finland through their craft that it is possible to choose a better path even when surrounded by negativity. The youth in Watts are pursuing entrepreneurship through their creative abilities, clothing design, music creation, and dog breeding. To them, it is important to choose a more constructive direction than the previous generations in the area.

During this undertaking, it was clear that an Art Director of today should get to know Gen Z to be able to understand the way they think and view the world. The creative workshops revealed that youth thrive in groups and are supportive of each other. What I have found is that for youth to steer away from crime, they need the resources to be able to focus on their passion, whether it is an artistic- or a sports activity. My role as an Art Director had an overall positive effect on youth, from witnessing their commitment and level of ambition. What I have found interesting to observe is that they are outgoing and when allowed to collaborate they are open to doing so with people of different cultures- or age groups.

Storytelling in audiovisual documentary through the vision of an Art Director stands out amid sub-par documentary videos. In this initiative, the captivating videos succeeded in attracting the attention of viewers of different generations and prompted them to get involved.

In this initiative all stakeholders have managed to collaborate in innovative ways by feeding off of each other’s ideas. It has been shown that youth are eager to collaborate if they are given the opportunity. The stakeholders have now set a strong foundation for the forthcoming t-shirt release in June 2024, which will be accompanied by a marketing campaign and another documentary video.