Preserving Black Stories: Afro Charities

These days, it’s hard to keep up with everything happening around the world around us. Yes, we have access to a lot more sources for information (news outlets, social media, print), but making decisions about how we vet and consume it takes a different level of intentionality.?

When it comes to preserving the everyday events within our own lives, it can seem like an insurmountable task. Just as it’s hard to keep up with local and global news, it’s much more difficult to keep up with what's happening in the day-to-day in the lives of our loved ones, especially beyond the milestone or “highlight” moments.?

But we know that it’s those everyday moments that really color our experiences and understanding of people and many different experiences that happen. — Joy Ekuta (Co-founder & Chief Strategy and Operations Officer at Retrospect)

So when we had the opportunity to partner with Afro Charities, Inc. , an organization who works to preserve the everyday stories of Black people, we were excited to celebrate, amplify and make accessible their archival tradition. We served as brand partners to assess the needs of their existing brand, help guide their rebrand process and fully design and develop their new website on Webflow.

Work like this is heart work for us, so we invite you to learn more about the people at the heart of this transformational work.

To drive impact at the scale we envisioned for the work,?we collaborated with a number of different experts and organizations whose personal stories and relationship to the work were necessary and meaningful to the mission we all were supporting.

Afro Charities

The Client

Afro Charities is a Baltimore based non-profit organization that is responsible for archiving the AFRO American Newspaper, which is the longest standing publication for documenting Black stories across the world for over 130 years.

The organization needed a brand that was fresh, distinguished, and recognizable to reinforce its authority as a leading archival organization that preserves and diffuses not only Black history, but American and world history. This also meant their digital presence needed to be consistent and cohesive with its physical and communal roots to fully characterize the legacy of the organization.

Through this process, we learned that authenticity, preservation of everyday life activities, and genuine care from the local community is what set them apart.

We started off the work with a full assessment of their brand and the community behind it. We connected and collaborated with their key stakeholders (leadership and various team members), board members, donors, and other partners to fully understand the organization, perception of those stakeholders, and how best to position the people and organization within this work.?

Every team member we encountered was passionate about the work. When talking about their experiences with the information in the archives, and doing the work in support of families, there was always a layer of emotion expressed that felt genuine and felt protective of the work, not just for work's sake.?

The AFRO Archives of course represent the rich history of AFRO News as a company, but what most people don't know is that they also hold a wealth of information about everyday people. We might have material about you, your parents, or grandparents in here! — Savannah G.M. Wood (Executive Director, Afro Charities)

Wide Angle

Brand Refresh Partners

During our initial audit & insights work, every single person we interviewed mentioned finding ways to activate and engage younger generations. They shared that youth involvement, particularly in pursuing archival and curatorial practices, was the #1 factor for sustaining this work. It was important to make young people feel empowered to see themselves in the archives as well as see professional career opportunities in space.

So when Afro Charities introduced the team at Wide Angle as their key partner to translate our insights into creating the brand refresh, we were excited to see that philosophy put into practice.?

Wide Angle Youth Media Black youth designers (Deshaun Fortune, Aiara Manning) led the process in developing the new brand. Our team supported and provided feedback to ensure key insights from the rebrand foundational strategy remained integral to the creative design. In parallel, we co-ideated for how we could help translate the new brand work into a new web experience. Our collaboration was a true learning experience. We contributed harmoniously to each other’s work, even with varying differences of experience, to practice in real-time of the mission of Afro Charities.

Working with Retrospect was a new experience for me. I’ve been with Wide Angle since high school, building my skills as a graphic designer with them for 8 years, and this is the first time I’ve worked with another design agency to deliver a product. We always strive to leave our clients with the tools and information necessary to further develop their brand on their own, but this time we knew exactly how it would be developed after we moved on from it, and by who. Having Retrospect’s eyes and expertise on the project taught me how to build more versatile brand systems that can be used in a number of ways after we’ve sent it off to the client. - De'Shaun F. (Designer, Wide Angle Youth Media)

This collaborative project allowed our young people a beneficial learning environment giving them additional support, perspectives, and advice outside of Wide Angle. A big mission for us is to broaden the young designers' reach, and this project allowed them to network, learn from other design professionals, and see their brand decisions implemented into a new web product, which is big for us. — Dan Flounders (Design Director, Wide Angle Youth Media)

The Blackpepper Studio

Website Development Partner

Once the new brand had been created, it was time to bring that work to life. We spent time taking the initial insights, new brand guidelines, and researching websites from similar and aspirational organizations.

We designed the digital experience to differentiate the site from similar archival organizations, and to also thematically simulate the practice of physically scrolling through different “files” of archival material. The copy and design layout were structured in a way to help simplify and make the digital experience accessible to all audiences and motivate them to continue to go deeper in the experience and start to experience the full breadth of the Archives.

We knew that in order for the full experience to come to life, we needed a partner who could not only support on execution, but who could intimately understand the challenges and values of the organization to provide recommendations for bringing website to life in a way that best represented the designs and would set the Afro Charities team up for long term success.

We enlisted The Blackpepper Studio , another multidisciplinary branding and design studio located in London / Lagos. Working with a fellow Black team across international borders meant we could further deepen our intentions and global considerations for telling and preserving Black stories, everywhere.

The Blackpepper Studio (TBP) developer Nkenna Amadi led and built out the new site experience on Webflow .? It again was a tremendously valuable shared experience for learning from and contributing to each other’s work, practicing in real-time of the mission of Afro Charities.

Our goal was to create a seamless digital experience that amplifies the mission of the Afro Charities team in preserving Black heritage. From intuitive navigation to impactful content presentation, every detail was carefully considered to engage a diverse audience and support their community outreach. We are excited to see how this new platform will help them continue their important work! — Nkenna Amadi (Co-founder and Lead Developer at The Blackpepper Studio)

Our Lasting Perspective

Retrospect as Rebrand Strategic Consultants & Web Designers

As a Black-owned organization that started out of an unprecedented and historic Black moment - we deeply understood the importance of working with partners who would honor and reflect a deeper connection to the history of Afro Charities. We took immense pleasure in actualizing the organization’s mission by assembling and collaborating with a majority Black team across the Diaspora to “archive” Afro Charities’ old brand, and set the foundation for them to “archive” the present and future Black stories.

Projects and partnerships like this are why we exist and why we keep going. We’re at a time where it’s more important than ever to actively and accurately preserve culture authentically, capture things contextually how they are happening in the present moment, and think about our relationship to these memories for the future and beyond.

Our hope is that when you experience this work and the people behind it, that you can literally feel the history. - Quinnton Harris (Co-founder & CEO at Retrospect)

Check out the live website design here ???????????????? https://www.afrocharities.org/ .

If you're interested in partnering with us, send a quick shout to [email protected] .

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