TEDx COLORADO MOUNTAIN COLLEGE
Working as the Marketing & Brand Coordinator for two of Colorado Mountain College's campuses has provided me with some awesome jobs I have enjoyed working on. One of the greatest projects I helped manage was our collaboration with TEDx. Eight months of work went into creating all of the assets needed for our independently organized TED event.
Taking the Lead on Design
Since I already oversaw all marketing operations for my campuses, it made sense I would take the design/marketing lead on this project. I was happy to create whatever the project needed. I would argue this is one of my strongest portfolio pieces, because this really had a little bit of everything I had to manage - logo design, layout design, illustration, communications, digital & print advertising, photography, promotional materials production, motion graphics, website management, all while working on a strong team.
The Illusion Man
The theme established for the event was "Sense of Place". This meant that our speakers could speak on anything that had to do with the sense of place we define for ourselves and our circumstances. Perspective changes our outlook on life, and sometimes we can create false illusions for ourselves that skew us off the track we need to be on.
With this prompt in mind, I got right to work on creating poster/branding concepts that would define what this event looked like to the public eye. The first two concepts I made didn't take that long, but then I had an idea I didn't know if I could actually execute. I wanted to create an illusion of a man standing within these flat lines, and only the width and position of the lines would create a 3D perspective of a figure standing in the lines - giving a "sense" that someone was "placed" there.
The many tedious hours placing a multitude of nodes paid off however, as the Illusion Man rapidly became the favorite by a landslide amongst the CMC community. I had a heart full of joy while creating this poster, it was very fulfilling for me to make it.
Indecision
A problem arose with the design and the colors. Our whole team was perfectly split on whether the design should lie on the black or red background. It was impossible to determine a majority, even among students. Some argued that the black background wasn't as intense, while others loved that the red background was so eye-catching.
Such indecision led to both designs being used simultaneously.
(I liked the red background the most!)
The Marketing Piece
Along with working alongside TED to ensure their logo and brand standards were kept, I also had to ensure that CMC's brand guidelines were met as well. This made the creation of the logo a tedious process with lots of back and forth emails of what we wanted the event to be called, what we wanted the logo to say, what TED actually wanted the logo to say, etc. We finally settled on a decision, and then it was up to me to spread the word and be a brand ambassador for two coinciding organizations.
I later discovered how many favors I did for myself making the Illusion Man as modular as it is. It could be shrunk to any size, the colors could be reversed, and the design could be infinitely extended on the top, due to there being unaltered flat bars above the Illusion Man.
The Program
To announce our speakers, thank our sponsors, and talk a little about the theme "Sense of Place", An eight-page program was requested. This was the time I could really let the full brand loose and get incredibly creative on presentation.
Due to the positive indecision on the background color from earlier in the design process, We felt both colors needed to be equally represented. What led was a design choice unlike anything else I've ever worked on. To further push the theme of relativity with our sense of place and illusion, we thought it would be fun to place half of the pages upside down in the program, meaning the user could start from either end of the program. It was a choice of which place you wanted to start reading through. The final print file became very confusing to work with, and a few test prints and concepts had to be made up before the final print file would be sent out.
Event Photos
Here's some pics from the event.
