State of the Arts high-impact civic forum designed to elevate public conversation about the role arts and culture play in Lafayette’s economy, identity, and future. It brings together leaders from across sectors to share ideas, data, and strategies that strengthen our cultural infrastructure and deepen its impact.
This program began as a small forum within Acadiana Center for the Arts' Creative Acadiana series. Prior to its third year, AcA saw the need opening up for a larger conversation. The event was scaled form a one room event to a full day of panels spread throughout AcA and a keynote speaker. My role in this event was building an identity, ideating collateral, creating designs, handing orders, and creating an event program with accompanying slides for each session.
Since it began on such a small level, State of the Arts didn't have an "identity". With the jump in scale, the need for branding and collateral became a priority... and fast. I ended up starting with defining a color palette first which is a bit out of the norm for my usual process. I know I wanted to use the AcA red in order to ensure all logos look nice together when shown in full color. After finding other colors that meshed well with the red, the branding came together in almost no time at all.
Logo Progression:
Other Cool Stuff:
Not unlike most programs born of non-profits, this event was met with a very fast timeline and limited resources. Because of this, we quickly ran into a challenge when approaching merch and an item to hold event materials day of. My main considerations when approaching this type of challenge is usefulness & longevity. Is the goal to hand someone something or to make them want to KEEP it? With this in mind, I found an affordable zipper pouch with fun colored zippers that matched our shiny new brand. These zipper pouches became the home of a mini fold schedule, stickers, pencils, and contributions from partnering organizations. This unique and fun approach to what could have simply been a folder or tote bag was received extremely well by attendees and staff.