Theatre Mainstage Identity and Design System

Columbia College Chicago’s Mainstage is the Theatre department’s opportunity to share student and faculty work with the community and college. A collaboration between Theatre and Design, the goal of the project was to conceive of a bold and daring design, to embody, what was described by our client as 'a season with a bite.' One of the criteria that my design team and I developed early on in the process was that we needed the campaign to be tightly tied together as a whole. We wanted the Columbia community and others to recognize the design from the first play of the season to the last, thus calling for a cohesive design system. Early in the project, we realized that our client were not utilizing social media to their full advantage, and thus, decided to design deliverables that worked across both a digital and physical platform. We presented three distinct, fleshed out themes to our client that emphasized the ideas of photography, illustration, and typography respectively. Ultimately, our client chose to move forward with my typography concept as the official theme for the new season. Design Lead: Jess Oh | Design Team: Emma Carrillo, Anthony Camacho | Advisor: Sarah Faust

Preview of Final Design Set

The five shows as 11x17 posters in the Mainstage series working as a cohesive design set

            
Process
Mood board for photography idea. It explored the use of dramatic lighting against silhouettes to best mimic the style of professional theatre companies

Four of the five plays working together as a set under the photography theme

Mood board for illustration idea. It explored the idea of isolating a few key elements from each play to best represent the core concept from each

Process images of the five shows working together as a set under the illustration theme

Mood board for typography idea. It explored the use of treating type as a visual element
instead of as text to read and understand

Initial ideations for the typography theme idea

Process images of the five shows working together as a set under the typography theme

              
Final Deliverables

Early draft working in the chosen design system

Flat composite poster

Composite poster featuring all 5 shows in a single 42x54 size

Postcards of the five shows working together as a set under the chosen typography theme

Website banners for the departments archives

Facebook banners for the department's social media presence

The Wolf at the End of the Block Instagram banner

3 Instagram posts lined up together to reveal a banner advertising upcoming shows

"A Little Night Music" creating its own environment as a result of the background text

A playbill, Instagram banner, and front and back of a postcard from "The Race 2020"

More of my work

Raaka Chocolate Rebrand Packaging
2018
Glossier Rebrand Packaging
2019
Buddy Project Rebrand
2018
Type Postcard Observation
2019
Bodacious Typeface
2018
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