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.

The website is mostly aimed at european youth, they were able to follow a well known artist from their own country and their experiences in Africa. The site had to be interesting enough for european youth to follow daily but easy to update from Africa. thats why the choice was made to build a Flash based website which allowed for an interactive user experience through the use of photos, video, audio and an artist blog. The website focusses mostly on the Artists and Countries but extra background information about HIV&Aids can also be found in multiple languages. The Website was created in collaboration with Beer van Geer and Peter van Beek, and was scripted by Danny Grob.

Visit the Website

A total of 15 webisodes were edited in Africa during the tour (of which I did half), using the material shot for the documentaries. The aim was to create a short but personal video in which the artists experiences would play a central role. To make it possible to upload a new video every 3 days they had to remain short and small in filesize. All the video was edited on a macbook pro with final cut pro and a couple external hard drives. It made me realize that no matter where I am, I can always do my work, even in a country like Malawi, where even electicity isnt a sure thing.

Visit the Youtube Channel and watch the Webisodes

There were over 7000 pictures taken during the tour, of which a large portion were taken by me, a lot of them (about 4500) made it onto the website and some were even printed in African newspapers and magazines.

Flickr Photo Set

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.

When I got back from Africa I also wrote a thesis about the future of Internet in Africa, which gave me a change to put everything I had experienced into writing and formulate a vision of what the impact on internet will be on African society and the youth. To do this I compaired the internet usage of the west over time in relation to society with the situation in Africa now and the possible differences it could make.

Wat voor invloed zal het internet gaan hebben op de Afrikaanse jeugd?
De eerste keer dat deze gedachte in mij op kwam was toen ik op dag twee van de Virus Free Generation hiphop tour. Daar stond ik dan, met een onbekend team en 2 rappers in een klein stoffig en donker klas lokaaltje in Tanzania. Een jongen van een jaar of 11 stond zonder angst, of onzekerheid, op en begon tegenover zijn idool te rappen, het gevoel van ongeloof over hoe ik hier terecht was gekomen verdween, en voor het eerst werd ik geconfronteerd met het talent van de Afrikaanse jeugd, iets wat ik de 10 komende weken nog vaak zou ervaren. Wat zouden deze kinderen allemaal kunnen bereiken als ze toegang hadden tot computers en de informatie op internet? en wat voor invloed zou dit hebben op hun leven? waren vragen die nog vaak terug zouden komen.

Internet in Afrika (Dutch) -- v1.0