To celebrate The Music Center’s 50th Anniversary, we led six design workshops across Los Angeles—from Little Tokyo to Koreatown, through Central LA, and Downtown. In each neighborhood, we gathered with youth and their grownups to visualize what kinship means to them, exploring themes of health, friendship, sustainability, and hope. Every shape, graphic, and texture created in one workshop was passed to the next, becoming shared material in a growing visual conversation.

The process culminated in an art-filled celebration on The Music Center’s Plaza, where Angelenos were invited to create some more, enjoying the plethora of shapes and ideas built in community.

For the final celebration, we used the “shape bank” to design a suite of graphic elements, including fabric banners, flags, stickers, and signage, to transform the plaza into a festive and welcoming space. Our design strategy focused on accessibility and joy. 

Together with Dewey Tafoya of Self Help Graphics & Art, we hosted a screen-printing workshop where participants mapped the stories their bodies hold. We titled this final collection Kinship: A Portrait of Us. It stood as a collective reminder that we are just as unique as we are the same.