Frank Douwes – Digital Media Design

The Virus Free Generation Hip-Hop Tour is a project by Hivos, Alliance 2015 and Music Mayday attempting to raise awareness about the HIV&Aids epidemic in Africa amongst the European youth of Germany, the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Italy.

It started in February 2008 in Dar es Salam (Tanzania) and ended in Cape Town (South Africa) in April 2008. In each country a duo was formed containing of a European and an African Hip-Hop artist. Together they visited HIV&Aids related youth projects, gave workshops to local youth and musicians on how to use music as a tool of expression and education and gave a free concert where the local youth got a change to show their talent. They also recorded 3 tracks for the album and recorded a music video together with the media team.

I was part of the media team that traveled along with the artists to capture all of the activities. The virus free generation hip-hop tour could be followed live on the website, which was updated daily from Africa with Photos, Videos (webisodes) and a Blog. I also created most of the print design for the campaign surrounding the european part of the tour.

When the Africa tour ended I was approached to design the CD booklet, Jewel case inlay and CD overlay, which meant converting the style from the website to print. This gave me an opportunity to use some of the previously unused pictures taken during the tour and to include some personal objects in the design that only the crew and artists would understand without distracting from the main design. the booklet ended up being 18 pages.

I also designed a simple flyer with the petition on the back, which was handed out at festivals in Holland in the summer of 2008. The flyer was also translated into German and used for a Virus Free Generation event in Berlin. A Sticker was made and spread through Amsterdam and Rotterdam, everywhere the tour went, the stickers just magically appeared.

All the print design was created in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign