In Fall 2015, the Auditorium partnered with IU Communications to create a holistic branding overhaul that both met the Auditorium's unique design needs and brought the Auditorium closer to the university-wide visual identity. The project scheduling left the Auditorium without a visual identity for the 2016–2017 season, so as the Auditorium in-house designer, I was asked to create a single-season style to bridge the gap between the existing design and IU Communications' forthcoming overhaul. 

Existing designs relied heavily on the use of Helvetica, a single violator bar for important information, and stacked photo slices to represent the variety of IU Auditorium's performance offerings. While heavyweight typography, bold colors and complex photography gave a rich impression of IU Auditorium's offerings, over the years and through multiple applications, the identity began to become visually chaotic and a strong connection to IU was weakened.   

The existing photo slices and brightly colored violator bars served a valuable purpose by showcasing the Auditorium's performance variety and drawing attention to the localization info (date, time, Auditorium's URL). Because of the value these elements contributed to the Auditorium brand, I reinterpreted them while moving the color palette and typography back into IU brand guidelines. 

For the 2016–2017 season, I developed concepts using an angled, layered interpretation of last year's photo slices, carried through both season-wide photo imagery and show-specific violator bars. On season-wide materials, the layers gave an opportunity to add IU brand colors into the stacks of photos. On show-specific materials, the layered, multi-colored violator bars became a vibrant focal point for our localization info and provided the flexibility to condense or expand as in motion graphics. Where possible, I added the IU trident to mark IU Auditorium's place in the university. 

While the 2012 "Indiana University Auditorium" Helvetica lockup had to be retained for brand recognition and continuity, all other type phased out Helvetica in favor of IU-approved Benton Sans or Georgia Pro. For the 2016–2017 season, I created a vibrant, bold "best of both worlds" design that nodded to previous years' influence while taking a big step towards acknowledging its place in the Indiana University family.