POW! WOW! ROTTERDAM – BREAKDANCE STAGE PROMOTION

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For this project, Xisco Riboch from Hustlekidzapproached me, because he was planning on organizing a Breakdance Contest during the Rotterdam Street Culture Weekend. Xisco is a professional dancer, performance artist and event organizer and Hustlekidz is an internationally recognized collective of Dutch breakdancers, respected all over the world. The group has won multiple world championships throughout the years. The Hustlekidz Breakdance Stage was going to be a part of ‘Pow! Wow!’, a creative festival with dancers, artists and singers in Rotterdam. I was asked to do the visual design for the event. The organization wanted posters, flyers, clothing, awards and digital promotion material for the event. Xisco and I have worked together before on breakdance events, such as ‘We are the Future.’

I used to be a breakdancer and for me, dancing was a way to express my creativity, and use my energy for something positive. The event was being held in the Afrikaanderwijk, in Rotterdam which is a neighbourhood where a lot of children from disadvantaged positions live. I loved to contribute to an event that can inspire those kids, just like I was inspired to dance when I was younger. For that reason, I am still trying to stay close to the breakdance community.

I am fully aware of new practices and social developments within the local and international scene. The following question was the core of my approach:

How can I create visual promotion material for a breakdance event, in which we try to inspire and motivate the local youth of Rotterdam?

To understand what inspires and motivates this community, it is important to have empathy and to be able to translate this through designs. Breakdance is also one of the newly nominated sports to be a part of the Olympic Games. Because of this development, I believe that breakdance is going to be much bigger, more mature, and broadly recognized sports. This event was a great opportunity to expand my professional network with local and international influential people from the breakdance world.

Furthermore, during my hbo internship, I worked as a visual designer at a social media marketing agency. I have experience in the field of social media marketing and therefore I proposed to help with the social media promotion strategy for the event. For our strategy we decided to create an Instagram campaign for the duration of 6 weeks to promote the event with appealing visuals in which we announced the participants and the acts.

To create a feeling of connection and unity throughout the community we also created custom hoodies and shirts for all the artists and the crew involved in the event. I took the responsibility for designing the print of the hoodies and the t-shirts. In order to incorporate the feeling of locality and unity, I decided to place the location and the name of the neighbourhood on the front of the hoodie, next to large letters reading ‘Hustle Kidz’ to ensure brand recognition.

The events was a great success. The winner of the adults breaking tournament won a trip to Hawaii where he would compete in the break finals at POW! WOW! Hawaii. The winner of the kids tournament won a ticket, for herself and one parent, to the city of Zhengzhou in China to compete in the world finals of the We Are The Future championships. Other awards as ‘Dancer of the day’, and ‘Style is Power’ were given to promising young dancers to keep them motivated and express our gratitude for their participation. The awards for the winners where also designed by me.