Black Women Are The Future: Bessie (2025)
Role on Project:
Lead designer on merchandise
Art + Creative direction for photo campaign, dinner party and nail salon
Creative Director and designer of collaborative magazine with Off-Kilter Magazine by Kizer Felton
Outcomes:
Sold out merchandise with multiple restocks
Produced four events with over 200 attendees
Built community rapport through community specific events
“Black Women Are The Future” is my longest-running collection with prgrssn. It aims to provide space for Black women to be loved, celebrated and acknowledged for their countless contributions to the world.
In 1920, Bessie Coleman wanted to earn her pilot’s license but no American school would grant her admission into their flight programs. Determined, Bessie defied all odds pursuing her dream of becoming a pilot and became the first American Aviatrix in 1921.
Inspired by this story, we decided to build on the universe of Pepper by opening a flight school for our beloved character. We wanted to highlight women from Chicago we believe carry Bessie’s spirit through the lens of Pepper.
We also partnered with Chicago-based magazine, Off-Kilter Magazine and self-published a magazine to highlight the stories of the three Black women featured in our Bessie Aviation School campaign.
Product shots are below. All work shown was created by Oluwaseyi Adeleke.
Campaign photography by Obinna Onyeka (@obiophotos)
Ideation + Sketch
The following deck highlights our references and overall look to building out the Bessie Aviation School Universe. Here, you can see early iterations of our designs and overall story used to build a campaign around the legacy and life of Bessie Coleman.
Your Program Director
Wanting to fully immerse our audience in the world I was building, I acted as the Bessie Aviation Program Director during the duration of the campaign.
Introducing the c/o 2025
“Pepper’s Hangout” - Campaign Lookbook
The following images are from the set design used for our Bessie Aviation School lookbook. Inspired by our aviation theme, we built an airport hangar to immerse our audience in the world we created for our inaugural class captains on campus.
Sole Food: “Pepper’s Chili Parlor”
Wanting to unpack every part of Bessie’s story, we decided to open up “Pepper’s Chili Parlor.” This fictional restaurant was a dinner party we hosted in collaboration with James Beard finalist, Chef Lamar Moore’s etc. Chicago and Chef Keenan Brackett. This event highlighted Bessie’s time as a Chili Parlor manager to save up money to attend aviation school.
“The Nail Salon”
Inspired by Bessie’s time as a nail manicurist, I identified local nail artist and commissioned nail artworks with the prompt, “Black Girls Are Meant to Fly.” These nail artist were then provided a “crew” which consisted of a photographer and model. Each crew was then tasked with creating imagery that highlighted the story the nails sought to tell. This came together as a unique art exhibition that highlighted the importance of nail culture in the Black community through the lens of each presenting artist.
“The Brave Newsstand” - Self Published Zine
The culminating event for our campaign was the launch of our self published magazine, “The Brave Newsstand” highlighting our inaugural class captains. The magazine was sold at our built newsstand.
