Alyssa Devore
BRAND DESIGNER | BRANDING LEAD FOR LOST IN SPACE SHOW
"I’m a design addict craving creation through aesthetic storytelling."
Alyssa Devore is a dedicated designer specializing in brand development. She is passionate about understanding a business from within and building connections with people to craft a vision. She doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to the nitty-gritty of brand strategy, offering research, analysis, and direction unique to every project. She never fails to ask about a style guide— or offer to create one. Her detail-oriented approach and enthusiastic attitude make for an engaging experience as well as quality concepts.
As a firm believer in the power of a story, she likes incorporating historical aspects into designs. Pulling inspiration from nature and experiences, her work strives to incorporate an air of familiarity while maintaining a distinctive look. She’s currently juggling freelance branding projects, dreaming of opening her own design company in the near future.
Humanity
CELEBRATING MUSIC AND ART VIA UNIQUE EXPERIENCES
Project Overview
In the midst of a global pandemic, everyone had their world turned upside-down, including me. Our lives felt disconnected and mundane. I began to question, what does it even mean to be human? Which is obviously, a loaded question. I set out to chase the unique feeling of Human-ness and what it meant to experience it. My research pointed me in the direction of music and art, where I began to explore the earliest concept of social gathering celebrations and shared experiences. This led me to conceptualize one of my own creation. Humanity festival is designed to be a celebration of our uniquely human experiences. As a designer specializing in branding, I approached this from a business perspective, building off of that into a developed brand identity and strategy.
Process Work
RESEARCH
In my research I heavily explored festival history and origins, beginning as far back as Ancient Greece. Tracking festival history through the years, I noted how the approach changed over time. The ’70s were an integral time in popularizing music festivals in particular, especially with Woodstock. Since then music festivals exploded in pop culture, leading to a competitive landscape with a ton of variety. Exploring competitively, I zoned in on 4 of the most popular events in North America. Arranging the competitors with their respective traits into a matrix, we can begin to see what traits each festival has in common, and what areas there may be a hole in the market that humanity can fill. For example, museum-like exhibitions are uncommon to find at modern festivals. Building these newer elements onto the familiar format of a music festival will create an experience that is tried and true, yet unique. Establishing that sense of familiarity with the audience is essential to ensure the public brand perception is in line with the company's goals and values.
DESIGN PROCESS
Much of Humanity’s visual style is inspired by design trends of the 70s. Some consider the design in this era to be a stylistic travesty, which some of it was. However, it was the fearless, unapologetic spirit that I aimed to capture within the Humanity brand. Much design in this era was experimental, revolving around bright super graphics, custom type, and wacky patterns. After exploring sketches and typography, I settled on a customized version of the groovy typeface Synthemesc.
Each letter is tweaked to fit together tightly, like people in a crowd. That feeling of close community is carried through the hugging letterforms of the wordmark. The organic forms bring a sense of movement, balancing super graphic style retro lines seen in other areas of the brand. An alternate logo with a subheader was also developed for advertising purposes, especially to establish brand positioning in the early launch process. The subheader uses alternate typeface Quicksand, better optimized for small-scale readability. Throughout the festival different stages and exhibits will have their own logo variation, stacked in the groovy typeface, always paired with the orange retro line waves— retaining the brand look over a variety of mediums.
Deliverables
One of the marketing strategies of the Humanity festival is to send out a promotional package to early bird ticket buyers, a fun box that gets them hyped about the festival— spreading the word about the upcoming event to their friends and posting online. As a thank you to those who supported us right from the start, the care package contains limited edition graphic poster prints, stickers, an exclusive shirt, and a record vinyl from Humanity’s musical exhibit, Essence of Music. Of course, it will also have a handy RFID wristband for event admission.
In total, the final deliverables for this project included a Humanity branding guide, process book, and collateral designs for posters, shirts, stickers, wrist bands, packages, banners, vinyl records, and more.
Conclusion
If I were to continue with this project, I would be ready to dive into the logistics of setting up the actual event. It would be time to hire event coordinators to contact artists and vendors, and set up venue reservations. I would also flesh out the details behind the other Humanity exhibits to cover additional topics like culinary, art, and dance.
This exploration into the Humanity brand taught me the importance of research in the design process. The deep dive I took into festival origins gave me a thorough understanding of the past and their intentions, even back then. Expanding on the historical timeline, I got a grasp of what makes a successful event. Comparing the competitive landscape helped shape the positioning. By studying the audiences I could elaborate on values, craft design language, and predict public reception. This project has changed the way in which I view design research and share it with clients. The position of a brand within a space is important for design, but it’s also a valuable tool in telling a story. So although I had never designed for this type of event until now, I can confidently understand the associated cultures by sinking myself into the research— enabling me to connect with the right audience for every type of project.