Branding + Event Design
–brace the space
Overview
Each year the graduating class of the University of Reading's department of Typography & Graphic Communication has a degree show, the branding of which is determined by a group of students from that class. The team is responsible for the branding, designing and producing all the deliverables related to the final degree show for the graduating classes of 2019. The range of deliverables are chosen and rationalised by the team.
In our initial meetings, we brainstormed ideas as a team to develop a "winning concept" for the brief. Visual exploration led us to literary concepts for the degree show, heavily reliant on wordplay and metaphors, including in-jokes from the department. Translating these ideas into universally understandable concepts posed a challenge. We incorporated Typography department's use of EM dashes and EN dashes as our primary motif. Using the department's floor plan , and representing its evolving space by having it morph and change at each step of the branding.
The Team: Jess Downie, Elliot Ellis, Matt Franklin, Ben King, Philippa Lane, June Lin, Siu Yen Lo & Jake Pollock
Invitation: In the early stages, we focused on the invite's format. We opted for white as a spot colour on dark paper stock, with yellow as an accent, reminiscent of the building's yellow doors. Utilising the white toner on the Ricoh 5-colour digital press allowed us to incorporate 'white space' into the design, a central concept. Each invite was personalised using InDesign's Data Merge function, and around 930 invites were mailed out.
Website: The website design, based on the invitation, was still in development. A placeholder site was launched for preliminary information. It was intended to showcase student work and bios, with template pages created for easy content insertion. Jekyll was chosen for its content management capabilities, aiding in efficient page creation.
Social media: After establishing motifs through invites and the website, creating posts and banners for Instagram and Facebook became more streamlined. We planned to feature student work in upcoming posts to engage visitors.