Black Star Rising is an educational hub focused on consciousness-raising, cultural intelligence and relevant education. The brand is on a mission to teach the truths about black history and culture. Black Star Rising offers many tools to ensure students and teachers learn real black history:

• Lesson plans and teaching units that can be used in the classroom or for self-study

• Courses and coaching for teachers, parents and professionals

Create a flexible brand identity that effectively conveys the brand mission and soul within the education space and works across various digital and static assets.

All Pop Design brand identity projects start with an in depth questionnaire, analysis and client discussion. From there we start to move into the mood board phase.

empowerment. intelligence. ethnic pride. revelation.

The soul of Black Star rising reflects the power and history of black culture. Bold colors and prints. Proud cultural icons – past and present. Unapologetic realness. Limitless inspiration.

It was important that the color palette represented black culture in a modern way. Red, yellow and green has become synonymous with African and black culture but I wanted to select brand colors that would create a modern palette that pays homage to the rich colors of our ancestors. Shades of purple have a dominant role as they represent royalty and work well with the teal, creating a feeling of the galaxy and the night sky. The shade of orange is warm and is a reminder of the clay dirt of our ancestors. The green-yellow is a tamer neon to represent the bold, unexpected nature of our people.

The logo features a ship creating a bold motif that provides a connection to Marcus Garvey’s “Black Star line”, a fleet of ships he hoped would help create an independent economic base for people of African descent.

Black star rising is rooted in black history and the desire to amplify the trueness of black culture. “black star” comes from Marcus Garvey’s initiative in the early 20th century, the largest social movement among black folks, to empower the black community through economic development, pan-africanism and racial pride. Garvey created the “black star line”, a fleet of ships he hoped would help create an independent economic base for people of African descent. The nation of Ghana paid homage to the Garvey movement in a way by adopting the black star and pan-africanism when it won independence in the late 1950s. The brand’s connection to Marcus Garvey is one that I wanted to pull through into the logo.

Services

• Brand identity system

• Brand story development

• Corporate asset design

Tools used

• Paper and pencil (for sketching)

• Adobe Illustrator

• Adobe Photoshop