Fred Hampton x TDC
I first came across Fred Hampton’s story about 10 years ago via a friend's clothing site (Pretty Gangsta). The home screen featured a picture of a gruesome crime scene that depicted a blood stained mattress against a bullet ridden wall as Outkast’s “Return of the G” played in the background. I couldn’t help but sit there, stuck, confused as to what I was now looking at. 
However captivated by this scene, I needed clarity. WTF is this? And what in the branding and marketing history were you thinking when you put together this landing page? I immediately called my guy and as the cunning individual he is.. He laughed it off, knowing he succeeded at achieving his first aim, which must have been to shock the sh*t out of everyone who came across this site. From there, he introduced me to the Fred Hampton story.
After this enlightening phone call, I proceeded back down the rabbit hole. I spent the rest of the day reading and watching everything I could about this man whom I’ve never even known existed until today. I guess that’s the funny thing about learning, Albert Einstein put it this way “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.” Then again how would I know, my parents never mentioned anything about Fred Hampton, none of my history or ELA teachers thought this story was worth discussing. So where / when would I ever have gotten this information? But even with all that said, I still do my due diligence in terms of self improvement. However young, I would regard myself as a pretty knowledgeable individual so how did I not know about this historical event? And if I didn’t know, I’m 1000% sure my friends don’t have a clue either. At that moment, I knew I had to shine some light on the Chairman’s story. (Noted)
It would be years before this idea would ever resurface again. I remember watching a music video or something and the artist had on this fire Givenchy hoodie on and the simplicity of it caught my eye. The white text against a black hoodie seemed to make such a profound statement about nothing in particular or at least anything that resonated with me. I googled the brand to find this hoodie because I knew it had to be a pricey piece, I just wanted to see how much someone was willing to pay to make such a trivial statement to their audience. I think it was a $1300 piece, which I thought was impressive. Enamored by the design and the potential the simplicity this design could elicit, featuring only a name and a place, I knew this would be a perfect design to repurpose. But with what name and what place? What could possibly stand firmly in place of what this enormous brand planted.
and there it was.. FRED HAMPTON, CHICAGO.
