“The skateboarding community is well-known for being a supportive and welcoming place, but as with any other community, it isn’t perfect,” explains the Ask Campaign Collective, a group composed of four female and non-binary collectives from the skate scene, including Doyenne, Consent is Rad, Consent for Breakfast and Hera Skate. “Recurring events made us understand that the conversation around consent is a necessary and important one to have.” The idea for the Ask campaign was borne between international initiatives: Glasgow-born skateboarding brand Doyenne and Australian education project Consent is Rad, with support from online platform Consent for Breakfast and Berlin-based non-profit Hera Skate. Not only is their vision centred around shaping their shared community into a more consent-conscious one for all, it is also a uniquely physical-first campaign. Ask launched on 26 April for Sexual Assault Awareness Month as an educational zine and T-shirt series, countering the notion that communication can only happen online.
The zine itself, designed by Giulia Saporito, had to tackle a considerable challenge, both editorially and via design. “Our challenge was to make the topic of consent accessible but also without compromising the seriousness of the consequences that so many victims and survivors have to deal with across their lives,” says the Ask Campaign Collective. Content-wise, the zine features sections on everything from Consent and Pronouns to how to call out a friend on questionable behaviour, to comics and tests; allowing readers to check their understanding of consent. As such, the design needed to remain engaging and serious while allowing for “breaths of humour and art”, the collective says. Faced with walking the tightrope between clarity and beauty, Giulia has designed the zine with softness in mind “to inspire gentle but productive conversation,” the collective explains.