Awarded 3rd Place in Graphic Design and Arts: Event Identity System at The University of Houston's RedFest 2023
Digifest is an event held every Spring Semester at the University of Houston. The purpose of Digifest is to allow seniors majoring in Digital Media to showcase their work made throughout their college career to potential future employers, providing connection and networking between graduates and professionals. Digifest encompasses digital media’s artistry through visual communication, photography, videography, print, web, gaming, and design while showcasing the science and technology behind it all.
For this project, I wanted to visualize these Digifest concepts and translate them, along with the text, into a coherent design that could be instantly recognizable. I began this process by first defining Digifest and its relevance to the University of Houston (this concept statement can be found in the previous paragraph).
Once I had adequately defined Digifest, I began to draft the text/type in InDesign. Using the University of Houston colors, and fonts, I created a poster, announcement card, access card, and bifold. On every material, I constructed a black background with “Digifest” in bold red text. Using the principles of Gestalt, I placed the event details along an invisible grid stemming from the “E” in “Digifest” creating negative space. Additionally, I tilted the text to provide movement and excitement throughout the designs. I then began to compose abstract icons in Illustrator. Each icon depicted a trait of Digifest (a camera lens representing photography, a gaming controller representing gaming and simulation, a web cursor/bar representing web design, the top of a film clapboard representing videography, a cloud/wifi bars representing the Internet, a lightbulb representing innovation, a person representing the networking that Digifest provides, etc.). After I was satisfied with the style of the icons, I created a pattern that I used throughout the entirety of the identity system. When placing this icon pattern in each of my designs, I varied the size and placement; however, I still ensured a coherent style among each object in the series. For example, in some designs, I placed it so that the text/type (“Digifest”) interacted with the graphics (icon pattern), while in others, the two were simply placed next to each other. Together, these elements resulted in a clean design successfully conveying the significance and purpose of the University of Houston’s Digifest.
I'm Isabella, a freelance digital media strategist with a passion for digital communication, social media marketing, and video production.
