Portfolio Nite 2017 Branding

Every year, the SF State School of Design hosts an event called Portfolio Nite in which alumni working in the industry are invited back to speak about their experiences, as well as review current students' portfolios. The campus American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) organization is in charge of promoting the event. In my first semester being involved with AIGA (and at SF State), we chose designs I made to serve as the basis for the branding of the 23rd annual Portfolio Nite.

The above is the final poster I made, hung around campus at 11x17 and 22x34 in the days leading up to the event. To get there was a highly iterative, collaborative process. Like any project, it began with ideation.

There are a lot of 23s in my sketching because the precedent for Portfolio Nite branding was to emphasize the X in "Xth Annual," but after some consideration, I decided this was not crucial information and would only hurt the effectiveness of the poster if highlighted. So, I proceeded to develop the event title (Portfolio Nite) into a motif that could serve as a basis for the branding. The handmade, geometric letters from my sketches were received well by the AIGA, so I created a round of posters using them + type.

Collectively, AIGA members and School of Design faculty involved with Portfolio Nite favored the version in the lower left with the arrow. From here, I revised the poster based on feedback I got during our meetings and filled in placeholder text with real information. The final is below.

The poster wasn't the only item produced for the event; I took the motif from the poster and applied it to a nametag, email header, and square thumbnail image for web uses.

Fellow AIGA members also made additional deliverables using the assets I created, such as a brochure and a slideshow.