Responsive - Skateboard Design Competition 'Decks For Change' - development

I discovered a competition called 'decks for change' which focuses on using skateboard designs and relative artwork to raise money for skatepark developments and skate schools in developing countries that helps introduce communities to an activity that brings together the youth of both genders in said communities, the sport also encourages people to take risks and achieve things that they might not have thought possible of themselves.

The brief for the competition was quite open, it was based around positivty and notions or ideas that may bring about positive change in the local/global community.

My inspiration for this competition brief came from looking at the way indigenous tribes view mental health from a shamanic perspective, shamanism being something that we in the west have completely lost touch with in our culture.

http://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/08/22/shaman-sees-mental-hospital/

The above article details the views of a shaman/healer from the Dagara people visiting the scenes of a mental health institute. They regard somebody suffering from mental illness as somebody who is recieving a message from the spiritual world that may benefit the rest of the community as a whole.
However due to shamanic practices being almost completely abandoned in western society, the person suffering from any mental illness then lacks the guidance or spiritual tools to come to terms with the 'spiritual crisis'.

I treat this brief as an opportunity to produce abstract character designs that have a very immediate feel to them so as to reflect abstract nature of shamanic practice and of the spiritual realm.

The images in this post are of my development process with in this relatively quick turn around competition brief. I enjoyed producing the work for this brief as it was very non prescriptive and allowed me to experiment with new materials such as thick acrylic paint pens which give a very expressive look to the work being produced aswell as the ability to layer up colours on top of one another as demonstrated in the images above.