We were honored to help Nick Jr. bring in Black History Month in February, 2022. The goal for this project was to elevate the identity and potential of Black preschoolers, while focusing on wellness and preschool-friendly mental health.

For preschoolers, positive mental health begins with feeling good about yourself. One way for young children to elevate themselves is through positive affirmations to build a base for strong self-esteem and self-worth. The action of speaking these positive thoughts aloud became the feature of this campaign.

Despite another surge of COVID-19 bearing down on the country, we thought that it was important to feature live-action footage of Black children saying different affirmational phrases. We wanted children watching Nick Jr. to see other children that they could relate to as friends, classmates, and peers. We also featured some of the existing Black characters from various animated series on Nick Jr throughout. This gave Black children another opportunity to see themselves positively represented on an all-inclusive network.

For the safety of all involved, we didn’t do a traditional shoot. Instead, iPhones were sent to all of the actor’s parents, with instructions on how to capture the best shot possible. This meant that we didn’t know what we would be getting back. We also had to wait to start any design for the cel animation until we had the footage in-house. The uncertainty created by this non-traditional pipeline made this project a challenging and exciting scenario for everyone involved.

In the end, mixing together live-action, animation and Nick Jr.’s Black animated characters made for a proper pre-school celebration of Black History Month!