In early 2025, the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra came to us and said they would receive 70 instruments later that year as part of the Violins of Hope-Wisconsin residency. They asked us to be the branding partner on the campaign and build the brand, messaging, website, and marketing materials.
These instruments were owned and played by Jewish musicians and others targeted by the Nazis. Violins were played in concentration camps sometimes by force, but sometimes as an act of defiance. They bore witness to unimaginable tragedies, and survived. Israeli luthier Amnon Weinstein and his son Avshalom gathered and restored the collection over decades, and it now travels the world so these instruments can be heard again.
MYSO brought the collection to Wisconsin for a five-month residency of performances, exhibitions, and educational programs, running from September 2025 through January 2026.
We took this campaign and this work very seriously. Being able to help share the stories of these violins, the people who played them, and their families is one of our favorite things we have ever been part of.
Where We Started
Our first conversations focused on how we would share these stories in a way that honors and respects the survivors, and what visuals we could create that would be unique to the Wisconsin residency.
Early on, MYSO gave us a resource document with the background stories of many of the violins. A lot of those stories were paired with historical images, and we were drawn to them immediately. We knew they had to be part of the campaign.
We did not want to manipulate the images much, so we took some of the most powerful ones and built a collage in Photoshop using paper textures and torn edges. We placed one of the most beautiful violins in the collection on top. That became our hero image, and it led everything else. We used that creative direction to build the rest of the campaign, the marketing materials, the website, and the ads.
Involving 65+ Partners
The other big thing we wanted to solve was how to work with the partners.
MYSO was hosting the violins, but 65 partner organizations across Wisconsin were part of the residency through programming, performances, and events. We wanted every partner to feel independent enough to create their own marketing materials for their own events, while still keeping everything branded and part of one unified voice.
So we worked with MYSO to create a brand and messaging guide for partners. It covered the usual visual direction like fonts, colors, and how to use the approved photography. Then we took it a step further and added a full messaging section. Because this topic is so sensitive, there was a lot we wanted to avoid, and vernacular that was not appropriate for the brand. We got specific about partner wording, keywords, hashtags, and how to talk about the violins. Partners knew exactly how to speak about these stories and these instruments without having to guess.
The last piece of the kit was Canva templates. We built a variety of sizes and formats so partners could make their own materials for their events, and the brand would stay consistent across the state.
Watching It Go Live
When the campaign launched and we started seeing the creative throughout the city, we were so proud and emotional. Knowing the impact it had on Wisconsin, on MYSO, on the partners, and on everyone who interacted with the residency was so fulfilling.
What was really unique about this residency is that it was the first time Violins of Hope had been hosted by a youth orchestra. Some of the violins in the collection were restored enough to be played, and they were put in the hands of young musicians. There is something beautiful about handing an instrument with this kind of history to a student and letting them breathe life into it again, all these years later.
Here are a few quotes from the students:
"The standing ovations were different… they were praising us for carrying those stories."
— MYSO violinist
"For me, playing her violin is both an honor and a responsibility. It is a reminder of music's power to preserve life and dignity, to create hope in despair, and to connect us across generations."
— MYSO musician
The Final Pieces
When the residency wrapped, we switched gears to work on some final pieces for the partners and the key donors who made it happen. One of those was a photo book.
So many photos were taken during the residency, and together they captured the breadth and scale of how far these violins reached. We laid the book out around the impact themes and spent many hours on it. It shows. It is one of our favorite pieces we have ever created.
The residency in numbers
- 50,000+ people reached
- 65 partner organizations
- 6M+ media impressions
- 331 total events
- 3,000+ musicians
- 179 educational programs, reaching 12,108 people
- 200 donors and $1.7M raised
- 22 cities and 35 ZIP codes
Thank You
Now that the campaign is over and we have been able to step back and look at what we made, we are truly thankful that MYSO brought us on board. We are honored to have helped share some of these stories.
You can see more of the work in our case study. The website is still up at violinsofhopewisconsin.org, if you want to learn more about the residency, and if you want to learn more about the violins, visit violinsofhope.org.
Photos courtesy of Violins of Hope-Wisconsin.
