Two creative graduates have created a powerful adidas concept-campaign – “Make Waves with Waves” – focused on empowering black women to swim through accounting for female black hair types.
Why do relatively few black women take up swimming? Issues including a lack of role models and a lack of facilities and funding in black communities, alongside concerns about hair have discouraged many black women from swimming. Make Waves for Waves seeks to address these issues head on through the provision of specialised swimming caps and hair care products, subsidised swimming lessons and role models.
West Herts College graduates Jack Parker and Savannah Finestone came up with the idea after they found out one of their friends, a black woman, couldn’t swim. Citing embarrassment to learn as an adult alongside the effects of chlorine on black hair types, their own research confirmed the extent of the problem so the duo created the spec campaign to embody the social and societal change they wanted to see.
The pair were tasked to come up with a creative idea as an entry into the D&AD New Blood Awards, in response to a spec brief set by adidas that focused on breaking down barriers and addressing a legacy of inequality and lack of opportunities for women in sport.
“Make Waves for Waves” won the highest creative accolade at the D&AD New Blood Awards, a programme that champions and showcases the best in young creative talent. Other spec campaigns and designs that effectively tackled real-world issues with creative solutions included:
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Joachim Klintfält, Mark Terkelsbøl and Nicolas Housted from Denmark came up with the idea for Pad Paper, an innovative sanitary pad roll designed to remove the stigma around menstruation by making period products as commonplace as loo roll.
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Kenneth Meek and Marianne Johansen from the UK came up with Narration, an idea to provide a comprehensive database of the BBC’s audio-described TV shows for the blind and partially sighted, as well as a multitasking generation.
You can check out all of the New Blood Award winning work at: https://www.dandad.org/en/d-ad-new-blood-awards/#winners
