Nature X Design Virtual Festival Banner

Specific Role

Creative Lead

Duration

Summer 2020-Winter 2021

Skills Involved

Branding, Visual Design, Collaging, Collateral

Tools

Illustrator, Photoshop

Team

TEALEAVES In-House Design Team

Nature X Design Festival Hosted by TEALEAVES, a series of virtual conversations joining the themes of nature and design to produce ideas that are greater than the sum of their parts.

OverviewNature X Design Festival is a virtual event series inspired by the art of blending. For the curious, artists, academics, thinkers, and innovators — the festival acts as an inspiration hub and brings together disparate ideas to design for a better future.

Facilitated and produced by TEALEAVES, Nature X Design features world-renowned speakers sharing their insights, thoughts, and projects, with contributing partners including the Convention on Biological Diversity, Microsoft Design, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, World Design Organization, and Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

Specific Role

Creative Lead

Duration

Summer 2020-Winter 2021

Skills Involved

Branding, Visual Design, Collaging, Collateral

Tools

Illustrator, Photoshop

Team

TEALEAVES In-House Design Team

Nature X Design logos and colour palette
Nature X Design's visual branding and colour palette

ProcessWorking closely with the Art Director, I was the lead designer involved in the creative development and production of marketing materials for the virtual festival events. Each panel session banner was created to have its own distinct visual look, yet they still fall under the Nature X Design branding and colour palette to remain cohesive. I worked on conceptual development, visual layout, photo editing, and typography for the session banners and marketing materials.

GraphicsWe were inspired by the various topics of discussion that ranged from environmental and social issues to interesting topics like AI, foraging, and aging, and thus wanted to collage or “blend” different visuals to create a compelling graphic. As these sessions are hosted by TEALEAVES and produced for the Nature X Design website, which follows an ethos of open source to encourage transparency and collaboration, the designs were made from free-to-public materials, including stock photography, illustrations, and vector graphics.

Final ProductThe visual designs were made into a variety of media for the amplification of the panel sessions. After creating the main event banner, I also worked on the subsequent email newsletter marketing and social media graphics.

Session banner
"Design the Future Through Retrospective Archiving"
Session banner
"In Good Taste: Signature Cocktail Hour and Documentary Viewing Party"
Session banner
"The Secret Science of Taste: Mouthfeel"
Session banner
"How To: Your Guide to Circular Design" (1/3 SXSW Panel Submissions)

TakeawayOne of my favourite design experiences was working on the branding and designs for the various panel sessions, which was an exercise in creative thinking that I really enjoyed. It was fun to come up with new ideas and collaborate with the Art Director to create new designs that looked compelling and effectively communicate the panel discussion’s content.