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Using collaging to shape our Black History Month 2024 campaign "Reclaiming narratives"

Collage artwork representing ideas of Black empowerment
  • Written bySavvy Bader, Midweight Designer, UAL Creative
  • Published date 16 December 2024
Collage artwork representing ideas of Black empowerment
Black History Month 2024, Collage by Ama Ogwo, Asili Taylor and Hannah Smith, 2024, UAL | Campaign design direction: Brand and Creative, UAL

In the United Kingdom, October is Black History Month, a time to honour and celebrate the history, culture and contributions of our Black community. This year’s theme ‘Reclaiming narratives’ emphasised recognising and correcting historical inaccuracies of Black history and culture.

The brief

Our in-house Creative team was briefed to create a distinctive look and feel for the Black History Month campaign 2024, this time responding to the theme ‘Reclaiming narratives.’

The campaign design aims to deepen the understanding of Black history and culture, celebrate, represent and empower our community, as well as signposting our audiences to the Black Creatives Hub, an online space showcasing work by our Black community and highlighting support, resources and opportunities available.

The design process

Initially drawing inspiration from the principles of surrealism, a willingness to challenge imposed values and norms, and a search for freedom, we identified collage-making as an accessible surrealist artform that would allow our Black community to tell their own stories through the campaign visuals.

As involving our community was key, we designed a collage-making workshop where a small group of artists worked both independently and collaboratively. The collage outcomes aimed to challenge conventions and encourage new ways of seeing, actively transforming and re-structuring ideas and images that often go unchallenged. We advertised the opportunity via Arts Temps, open for current students and alumni specialising in collage for a 1-day workshop.

Watch Ama Ogwo, Asili Tayor and Hannah Smith work together to create the main campaign collage.

The visuals for this year’s UAL Black History Month campaign have been an outstanding success. It was great to involve students in the concept and I was extremely impressed by their creativity and understanding of the brief. The use of collage brought a fresh, distinctive look that set the campaign apart from anything we have done previously. The timelapse was also an amazing addition, offering a glimpse into the process of creation. This is by far one of my favourite design concepts from our incredible Creative Services team.

— Bunmi Ekundayo, Communications Manager Student Campaigns, Communications and Brand, UAL

We collaborated with 3 collage artists, Ama Ogwo, Asili Taylor, and Hannah Smith. They got started based on a prompt which asked the group to draw from their own experiences, stories and history to respond to ‘Reclaiming narratives’ through the medium of collage. The aim was to create visual representations of untold success stories that demonstrate the complexity of the Black experience, transforming narratives that have overlooked these contributions and illustrate new ways of interpreting history.

The materials used in the workshop to create the collages were sourced from the Re-Use units on site and the artists’ own supply. All the workshop attendees, artists and colleagues alike, contributed to a collaborative playlist which played all day to keep us motivated and inspired. As we drew the workshop to a close, Ama, Asili and Hannah each created individual collages responding to the brief, as well as working together to create a collective group collage.

The theme ‘reclaiming narratives’ makes me think of how difficult it can be for Black people to be content with the/their archive. Collage is an interesting choice for this campaign for that reason.

— Asili Taylor, 2024, BA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins, UAL
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    Black History Month 2024, Collage workshop, UAL | Photograph: Noah Tjijenda
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    Black History Month 2024, Ama Ogwo during the collage workshop, UAL | Photograph: Noah Tjijenda
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    Black History Month 2024, Asili Taylor during the collage workshop, UAL | Photograph: Noah Tjijenda
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    Collage by Hannah Smith, 2024 BA Illustration and Visual Media, London College of Communication, UAL | Campaign design direction: Brand and Creative, UAL
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    Collage by Asili Taylor, 2024 BA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins, UAL | Campaign design direction: Brand and Creative, UAL
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    Collage by Ama Ogwo, 2024 BA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins, UAL | Campaign design direction: Brand and Creative, UAL

Campaign in numbers

The 4 collages created in the workshop were each scanned at high resolution and then applied across all necessary campaign assets, including printed assets and digital channels.

Statistics for October 2024, compared to October 2023

  • Page views: 1,136,514 (109.15%)
  • Users: 159,506 (67.85%)
  • New users: 71,968 (19.92%)
  • QR code scans: 20,777 (75.53%)
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    Instagram story carousel, Black History Month 2024 campaign, Collages by Ama Ogwo, Asili Taylor and Hannah Smith, 2024, UAL | Campaign design direction: Brand and Creative Services, UAL
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    Homepage banner, Black History Month 2024 campaign, Collage by Ama Ogwo, Asili Taylor and Hannah Smith, 2024, UAL | Campaign design direction: Brand and Creative Services, UAL
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    Poster, Black History Month 2024 campaign, Collage by Ama Ogwo, Asili Taylor and Hannah Smith, 2024, UAL | Campaign design direction: Brand and Creative Services, UAL
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    Instagram story, Black History Month 2024 campaign, Collage by Asili Taylor, 2024 BA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins, UAL | Campaign design direction: Brand and Creative Services, UAL
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    Digital screen, Black History Month 2024 campaign, Collage by Asili Taylor, 2024 BA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins, UAL | Campaign design direction: Brand and Creative Services, UAL
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    Event poster, Black History Month 2024 campaign, UAL | Campaign design direction: Brand and Creative Services, UAL

Meet the design team

UAL Creative is University of the Arts London in-house design agency.

Since 2019 we have been building a team made of mostly UAL alumni, including recent graduates and occasionally students. We are a group of multi-disciplinary designers, freelance and permanent, Junior to Senior typically working on: Design strategy, Design thinking, Design systems, Campaign design—including print, digital and animated assets and Digital product design for teams and projects across the University.

We are within the Communications and Brand Department in the Social Purpose Group and based at the High Holborn campus. We also work with designers through UAL Arts Temps, our university recruitment agency and jobs board, giving UAL students and alumni the opportunity to work freelance within our team.

Graphic Designer
Savvy Bader, she/her/hers, 2018 MA Graphic Communication Design, Central Saint Martins, UAL

Junior Designer
Lynn Yang, she/her/hers, 2023 BA Graphic Communication Design, Central Saint Martins, UAL

Collage artists
Ama Ogwo, 2023 BA Graphic Design, Camberwell College of Arts, UAL
Asili Taylor, 2024 BA Graphic Design, Camberwell College of Arts, UAL
Hannah Smith, 2024 BA Illustration and Visual Media, London College of Communication, UAL

Communications Manager
Bunmi Ekundayo, Communications Manager Student Campaigns, Communications and Brand, UAL

Communications Executive
Tanya Campbell, Communications Executive Change and Projects, Communications and Brand, UAL

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