Summary
Invisible Designs is a fictional symposium about the contributions and achievements of graphic designers and typographers of color.
This brand identity unites the tagline — Unearthing erased histories in graphic design — to an earth tone palette and recurring soil silhouette graphic flair. A duotone teal treatment provides visual contrast between earthen elements and human-made art. The result is a sense of the content being excavated — discovered, made visible — as precious resources that the communities who created them have a right to claim.
Created For
Integrated Design & Media master’s program, Visual Design for Print & Screen course
Roles
Copywriter
Brand Designer
Web Designer
Goals
Create a cohesive, compelling identity for a fictional symposium across print and digital deliverables
Highlight the overlooked contributions of designers of color
Balance expressive, memorable form with functional communication of event information
Brand Identity
I stumbled upon this idea backwards, first choosing a warm palette with earth tones and contrasting teals. The type families selected — New Kansas and Realist — were chosen for their weight flexibility (within each family) and width contrast (between families).
After deciding on the tagline, Unearthing erased histories in graphic design, I noticed the connection between this word choice and earth tone palette — and explored graphic elements that would reinforce this, landing on a vector silhouette of soil layers against the logo and sections of content.
The assignment deliverables included one poster of the symposium schedule, and the first four pages of an article as spreads on a half-letter booklet. Once the semester was over, I went back to design a secondary — splashier — poster, and the full article spread, seen below.
Web
Continuing the unearthing motif, the splash website displays the symposium’s information through a window enclosed by the same soil silhouette as other brand materials.
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