Leadership RI is an organization that supports and cultivates new community leaders in Rhode Island. They recently launched a new initiative inspired by Thomas Jefferson's historic "Jeffersonian Dinners" and asked me to create a logo to promote the events. Jeffersonian Dinners are a unique format of dinner party that bring together about 10 people with a common interest and promote connection and action. Guests participate in a single, communal conversation that is facilitated by a moderator who presents questions on a particular topic or theme.
LRI's goal in hosting these dinners is to bring together leaders throughout Rhode Island's communities in order to promote collaboration and connection. With that in mind, I developed a few concepts that emphasized the idea of a dinner party centered around conversation. LRI chose to go with the idea of a conversation bubble on a dinner plate and from there I dove into the process of bringing my sketch to reality.
I considered using a hand-drawn illustration style for this design, but we felt that would have given a "casual" feel to the event and LRI was seeking a more elegant aesthetic that nodded to the historic inspiration. So instead, I found an old vintage engraving of fancy dinnerware and paired it with sophisticated typography. To tie this in with the rest of LRI's branding, I chose a more muted version of their signature "navy and gold" color palette.
