Design a shirt. Craft a mascot. Create merch that actually matters. Oh, and make sure it's good enough that people will actually want to wear it. No pressure.

We were going through a brand refresh, and we wanted our youths to be part of it from ground up — concept to product, rough sketch to actual thing you can hold in your hands.

Enter Adia, a freelance graphic designer who gets it.

Over three workshops, Adia walked our young designers through the creative design process. Not the sanitised version — the actual one. How to refine messy ideas, think functionally (will this actually print well?) and turn sketches into ink-ready artwork. They explored storytelling through visuals, figuring out how to translate what's in their heads into something everyone can see and feel.

Each designer took it in completely different directions.

One went hard on bold, streetwear-inspired shirt designs. Another created Pebbie, our now-iconic rock mascot, along with his cheeky little sidekicks (yes, they've got attitude. Truckloads of it). Others tackled the challenge of distilling Kita's entire visual language into badges and pins that captured our symbols and spirit in mini form.

The best part? These ideas didn't die in an obscure Google Drive folder somewhere.

Through Adia's mentorship, they became real. Actual products our youths could wear, hand out and show off. Tangible proof that their creativity matters.

Adia’s impact didn’t stop here.

She also helped us figure out who Kita is visually through our Brand Passport: a guide that defines our colours, typography and tone. It's our creative toolkit, giving both staff and youths a shared language to tell Kita's story with consistency and confidence.

For Adia, this wasn't just another gig.

"It was a joy being with you all these last few sessions," she told our youths. "You should be proud of your effort and innovation — I'm such a fan of your brilliant minds."

That's what happens when creative professionals and youths actually collaborate, instead of just one teaching the other.

Mentorship becomes co-creation, and every design is a story of growth.