Create! Don't Hate

Giving Youth a Voice Around Issues of Tolerance

Create! Don’t Hate. was a Design Ignites Change Youth Mentoring Initiative built around the theme of tolerance. The four week program was created to empower youth with a real-world experience using design thinking to communicate their ideas, exhibit their potential and take action in their communities.

AIGA Baltimore selected two schools to participate, Patapsco High School (Baltimore County) and Patterson High School (Baltimore City). Students and their design mentors were asked to create powerful public billboards that addressed the theme of "Tolerance in Baltimore" in a variety of compelling and thought-provoking ways. The program was designed to give participating students the tools and guidance they needed to create an impactful message with broad visibility within their community.

Along with empowering youth, the goals of the program were to publicly exhibit as many tolerance billboards as possible and to promote the participants and their work through the Design Ignites Change website and public relations campaign to demonstrate the power of design to ignite change. AIGA Baltimore chose seven of the billboards created to be displayed around the city. The one below was created by two of the students at Patapsco High School whom I mentored. It has been selected and will be posted in Baltimore. The date(s)/location have not been released. The student's names and my name will appear on the billboard, along with the sponsor AIGA Baltimore.