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In the Fall of 2019 BET reached out and asked me where I was freelancing, as they were in need of a new brand identity for their signature yearly tentpole event, The BET Experience – a multi-day festival in Los Angeles celebrating Black culture, music, and entertainment, featuring a variety of events including live concerts, panels, workshops, entertainment showcases, a celebrity basketball game, and a retail marketplace. It serves as a lead-up to the annual BET Awards, offering a comprehensive experience for fans.
This was created with my peeps at Trollback & Co.: ECD Alex Moulton , Co-CD Elliot Schafer and Art Director Lili Emtiaz . This job began in the Fall and continued through the early, rather uncharted months of the pandemic. We were working diligently to create a robust identity that could come alive in animation and be utilized for a host of marketing materials. The team at Trollback really did an incredible job with the 3D prism textures. Not at easy thing to achieve.
As you might imagine, the pandemic really took the wind out of ours sails. The live event was cancelled, and pushed to 2021, where it finally took shape as a virtual event. Despite the setbacks, it’s still a project I’m super proud of, as Afro Futurism is an aesthetic near and dear to my brain, ever since I first discovered Sun Ra in my late teens. I even got to do a brief lecture about the history of Afro Futurism for the senior creative team at BET. Free your mind and your ass will follow.