The Working Assembly celebrates New York's Chinatown in this brilliant festival branding

In the post-lockdown world, many of us seek to connect more deeply with our local community, in ways small and large. And New York City agency The Working Assembly has been doing just that, partnering with the non-profit organisation Think! Chinatown on a special local initiative.

Written By: Tom May

25 May 2022

The award-winning design firm has provided branding and creative support for the Chinatown Night Market, a summer series of food, art, and music, which kicked off last Friday and will continue on four more Friday night dates throughout the summer.

The Working Assembly helped create its brand identity, from logo to event signage, on a pro bono basis, helping emerging businesses thrive in the Big Apple.

The open-air cultural festival, held under the gateway to the Manhattan Bridge, features Chinatown-focused programming alongside local art and food vendors. It's a place for the community to come together, celebrate, and claim safe space in the public realm.

Jolene Delisle, founder and head of creative at The Working Assembly, explains why they got involved with the event.

"In light of the rise in Asian hate crimes in New York City, the unpredictability of a post-Covid world, and being an Asian-owned, NYC-based company, we felt personally called to partner with an existing mission-driven non-profit like Think! Chinatown; an organisation working alongside local business owners, leaders, and community members to engage and empower their neighbourhood," she says.

You can learn more about how Jolene and her agency create opportunities for women and people of colour and work with clients that positively impact the world in our exclusive interview.

Based in Manhattan's Chinatown, Think! Chinatown's mission is to foster intergenerational community through local engagement, storytelling and the arts. It believes that the process of listening, reflecting, and celebrating develops community cohesion and the trust necessary to take on larger neighbourhood issues.

They aim to overcome barriers to community organising, where socioeconomic factors, language, and cultural roadblocks create challenges for immigrant communities' autonomy to make decisions in their locality.

"A lot of this is rooted in this idea of being excluded or othered and that we don't belong," says Yin Kong, co-founder and director of Think! Chinatown. "Every step of the way in our work, we think about how we knit our histories together with a wider understanding of American history. Our history is interwoven into American history, and that's how we overcome it."