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Cover image for Made to Be Felt Event Design
Made to Be Felt Event Design & Creative Direction | Girl Effect / Nike Foundation Role: In-house Designer | 5 Years Background Ni Nyampinga — meaning "a girl who is beautiful inside and out and makes good decisions" in Kinyarwanda — was a youth brand created by Girl Effect, backed by the Nike Foundation. While the magazine was the heart of the brand, events were how Ni Nyampinga showed up in the world — how girls and their communities experienced it in three dimensions, together. Over five years on the in-house creative team, I worked on several events alongside my editorial work. These were some of the most ambitious productions the brand ever did. Turamurika — The Hero Campaign Turamurika was the largest campaign Ni Nyampinga had ever undertaken. The word itself carries the spirit of the event — a celebration of what girls can achieve when the people around them show up in support. The campaign ran across all four provinces of Rwanda and reached more than 2 million young people. The creative challenge was scale without losing intimacy. Turamurika had to feel like a celebration no matter where it landed — in a major city or a rural community — and it had to feel unmistakably like Ni Nyampinga. Our team provided the artistic direction, produced all the physical materials, and executed the project on the ground across every province. The visual language was bold and joyful — saturated colour, playful signage, flags and wayfinding that turned event grounds into Ni Nyampinga space. On the ground, it looked like a brand showing up at full volume for the people it was built for. This was team work in the truest sense. I was part of a creative team of 4–10 people depending on the production phase, working alongside freelancers, producers, and Ni Nyampinga's wider staff. What I'm most proud of is the contribution I made to a project that genuinely belonged to everyone who touched it. 5th Anniversary Celebration For Ni Nyampinga's 5th anniversary, I led the design and production of a more intimate celebration marking five years of the brand. I created the event theme, designed the physical materials, worked with printers, and oversaw the installation on site. The event became a moment for the team, partners, and community to reflect on what the brand had built — and to set the tone for what came next. High-Level Stakeholder Event A separate event was designed specifically for high-level decision makers in Rwanda — a very different audience from the young people who read the magazine. The tone needed to shift without losing the brand. I worked on the design, execution, post-production, and installation, creating an environment that felt elevated and serious while still unmistakably Ni Nyampinga. It was a useful exercise in understanding how a brand flexes across audiences without fragmenting. What Events Taught Me Editorial design asks you to guide someone through a page. Event design asks you to build a space they walk into — and trust that the brand still does its job when it's not in their hands but all around them. Working on Turamurika and the other events under the Ni Nyampinga umbrella taught me how a brand holds together across wildly different moments: an intimate magazine spread, a stakeholder dinner, a 2-million-person campaign. The same brand, made to be felt differently each time.
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