It’s 2020 and COVID-19 is officially a global pandemic. For the first time in recent history, the world is on pause.  And then George Floyd is murdered.

For a group of creatives, what happened to George Floyd was the tipping point. We started to discuss our frustration, sadness and just general fed-upness of the endless harassment, racism and violence toward Black people. So rather than share a few thoughts on our personal social pages, we decided to do something about it in a meaningful way. 

Inspired by the Green Book travel guide, Unwritten Rules Project is an encyclopedia that highlights a set of unwritten social rules that dictate how Black Americans live. This project is intended as an educational resource to challenge preset notions and ideas of privilege by talking about the Black experience candidly. We pair these experiences with assets on how we can take action for a more equitable future for all.

This project is intentionally independent to keep creative control over how this continues to evolve. We did not want this to be another BLM agency project that gets used for awards—that’s not what we’re after. Thankfully, Hawkeye leadership was supportive every step of the way. This truly is a project born from a passion to make a difference by educating the public in hopes of implementing lasting change.

View Unwritten Rules Project site

View Unwritten Rules Instagram

With any passion project, it takes a village of talented folks to make it all happen. Everyone listed here built this project from the ground up during our free time (mostly nights and weekends). Beyond proud to be a part of this team!

Developers
Matt Emrick 
Nick Brombal