Re-Architecting a Concert Visual Campaign in 5 Days to Convert 1.3K Ticket Sales

How do you save a concert campaign when a programming pivot leaves you with a 5-day deadline?

Art Attack  ↗ is the University of Maryland's longest-running concert series, produced by Student Entertainment Events, the principal student programming board on campus. For the 40th edition, Art Attack XL, SEE went larger than before: two nights, two headliners.

It also ended up being two campaigns, the first built around Grammy-nominated artists Victoria Monét and Smino, the second for a revised event after one of the days unexpectedly got cut.

I approached the design by starting with my baseline criteria: Victoria Monét and Smino are different sonically, but I saw a shared energy between Monet's glamorous and shimmery photo, and Smino's cooler, "vintage-leaning" look.

According to contract, none of the headshots could be severely altered in my process. I was thinking about the audience too, a college crowd that's diverse, so I wanted something glamorous without being princess-y and cool without being cold; which is what shaped most of my decisions.

The main focal point of the campaign is the AAXL logo.  I wanted to create something clean, bold, and modern, but still with a sense of fun and movement.

For the main colors, I wanted to reflect both of the artists while still blending together a scheme that would read well across an audience for 40,000 different students with different backgrounds. 

I thought teal reads as cool and more masculine, while purple sits adjacent to glamour without being overtly feminine. The gradient version ended up on the shirt and in a special variety of the logo used mostly in physical print (outside of apparel).

Color and type.

For the posters, I layered the artist photography directly into the identity. I give the criteria for any poster to be something I'd be comfortable displaying on my wall, which I hoped would be the case for the students who also picked one up.

The shirt, pin, and other merchandise extended those same motifs (the interlocking mark, the gradient, a flowy quality in the secondary elements).

Individual artist posters

A week before the event, we had to unexpectedly scrap our Victoria Monét performance, and I had roughly five days instead of the usual two months to pivot to a Pop Hits Dance Party (crowd-voted playlist, giveaways, mocktails, glow merch).

S

see_umd

Ritchie Coliseum

see_umd Swipe for our Dance Party Giveaways ✨

I kept the same wordmark, color system, and sense of motion, but shifted the tone toward a design language where I could easily insert any headshot, graphic, or last-minute incorporation thrown at me while the programmers reworked the event.

One of my biggest indicators of success is seeing my design work worn in public. I'll be at the gym and spot the shirt on someone, or it'll show up in an Instagram post, and that only happens if it's connects with an audience enough to wear after the night is over.