Junior Design Research Conference.
About the JDRC:
In 2010, Switzerland’s MA programs in design started organizing an annual conference that is specifically dedicated to the research part of the student’s MA theses. With an overarching topic that changes for each edition, presenting students are asked to shed light on the knowledge gap that their projects are dealing with, their research methodology as well as the intersection between practice and theory. Each year, a selected university and its campus host both the conference and the workshops that also take place in parallel. In 2016, the chosen one was the Basel School of Design (as a part of the FHNW), where I was happening to work at the communications department while studying my MA in Visual Communication and Iconic Research.
Briefing / Challenge:
Our department was assigned with the branding task for the JDRC. This included a logo, a flyer, a brochure with all the information, a poster and animated banners and videos for the HGK's website and the Facebook event. There were two big challenges for me in this assignment: On the one hand, it was my first job of this kind (for I was only starting to get trained in graphic design that year... And had NEVER worked on branding!). On the other hand, there was a lot of text. I am not really fond of stuffing a lot of visual information into a piece of paper or a frame but the assignment was clear and not negociable.
Solution:
My first step was to decide not to get too overwhelmed by the entire, so I went step by step. First, I took advantage of my situation back then, since I was also struggling with the beginning of my MA thesis. Thus, I created a polygonal shape that could feel both adaptable and changing, despite of its pointy corners. I meant to reflect with it how arduous and changing the research process is, for both one's own thesis and form one person to another. You're supposed to go down the same road but each in their own way. Secondly, I placed the visual elements on a plain color and chose color emerald green for it. According to color psychology, green instills calm, hope, cheerfulness and freshness, while being the color of luck at the same time. Hence, it felt like the perfect match for the context.
As for the challenge that comes along with squeezing so much text on the brochure, I opted for a minimal sans serif font (Fedra) that could add the required information without extra visual details, while offering enough options within its family (bold, light & italic.)
Videos:
Animations for different formats and purposes: website, Facebook page and school displays.
Variations:
These are some variations of the final version that got to be official poster (pictured above on the stand).
