Project Brief
All photos from official Electric Root Festival website.
Assets
Electric Root Festival Wayfinding
I collaborated with my Design Systems class in Spring 2023 to create a graphic standards guide and wayfinding system for the Electric Root Festival, an annual arts and culture event in Uptown Parks, Oxford, Ohio, celebrating Black joy and radical hospitality. Out of the five design teams in class, my team's final designs were chosen for the festival.
The Electric Root Festival creative team, organizers, and artists visited us five times during the design process in a series of client briefings to give valuable feedback on how our designs can better effectively communicate their vision and values for the festival. This included class discussions, Q&As during the research process, and walk-through critiques.
Existing Logo
Graphic Standards
Mood
As a class, we all contributed mood boards to set the tone for the project and solidify our visual goals. I created this mood board based on our first meeting with the event coordinators and initial research.
Through dialogue and iteration, this was my final graphic standards poster proposal to the class and the Electric Root Festival organizers. I aimed to highlight the themes of music and connection in my layout design but also prioritized having it flow in a viewer-friendly manner.
Graphic Standards Selected by Electric Roots Festival - Designed by Kayla Miller (classmate)
The Electric Root Festival organizers selected Kayla's graphic standards poster as the best representation of their brand identity. Her use of imagery of the people enjoying the festival truly expressed their values as an organization.
The typography, VTC Carrie in particular, was selected by our class from Vocal Type's website. The history behind the typeface reflects Electric Root's radical vision, just as Carrie Chapman Catt led the Women's Suffrage Movement in the US, which eventually led to women's right to vote.
Work in Small Design Teams
Team Members: Caitlin Curran, Rylee Shriver, and Me
In assigned groups, we started using the graphic standards manual selected by Electric Roots to design the identification, regulatory, directional, and orientation signage individually first.
My digital roughs
Rylee’s digital roughs
Caitlin’s digital roughs
Small Design Team First Draft
After a full class critique of our individual signage, we moved forward with applying that feedback to unify all of our designs into a cohesive whole.
We tiled and assembled 11x17 paper to get a full-size, to-scale representation of the signage we designed together. We received valuable feedback from classmates on color contrast, iconography, and layout.
Rounded corners, frames, and the use of the vibrant orange were our core strengths.
Supplemental Usage Guide
Our teams proposed usage guide for the signage. We identified which signs serve what purpose, mapped out where we think they will be most effective for festival goers and defined rules for how they should be displayed.
Small Design Team Final Proposal
Printed to scale on quality paper. Full class critique with Electric Root Festival Organizers. They were impressed by the simplicity of our orientational map and the consistent iconography across all of the signage. They suggested we change the food icon to something less specific.
Final Designs Chosen by Electric Roots for the Festival
Designed by: Caitlin Curran, Rylee Shriver, and Me
11 x 17 Signage (Includes Identification & Regulatory Signage)
2 x 3 ft Signage (Includes Orientational, Directional, and Major Activity Signage)
Design in Use
Name Tag
Button & Stickers (for festival goers at Welcome Tent)
Invite to Festival (Instagram Story)
We all individually designed an invitation to the festival, whether it was a personal invite or a social media promotion, we did our best to spread the word and get as many people to come and enjoy the festival! I chose to create an eye-catching Instagram story using the graphic standards guide, to spread the word to people who may or may not be in the Oxford area.
