Every year Central Connecticut State University hosts a massive Spring Concert where they hire a popular artist or group of artists to perform at the University. In 2020, that artist was Kesha.

I was given the task of creating a logo for the event as well as designing all of the merchandise and marketing collateral that would be used surrounding the event. I needed to create a visual identity that could work alongside her current branding but that did not reflect it exactly. Aside from the primary logo, I was also tasked with creating graphics for the shirt that would be sold at the concert. This consisted of a new logo for the front of the shirt and a hand illustrated custom graphic to fill the entire back of the shirt. For this I needed to research her current and past branding and use visual elements that would relate and callback to her previous works.

Separate from merchandise, I needed to create the social media and advertising graphics. This consisted of several Instagram posts and physical posters that would be hung around campus. Using the supplied photography from her team I assembled a visual style for these advertisements that was cohesive and fit the branding of her and the event. I was able to successfully combine elements of both CCSU's branding as well as her own personal brand using elements from her approved photography, colors associated with her brand, her personal logo, and type treatment and logo graphics that align with CCSU's typical branding.

When working on the graphic for the shirt, I went through several different stages and variations. There was a lot of back and forth with her team as we carefully crafted an image that best represented her brand in a way that wouldn't interfere with any of her other branded merchandise outside of the CCSU Spring Concert. I played with portraits of Kesha, different graphics and images inspired by her, and toyed with her past logo marks and designs. Ultimately, I ended on a hand illustrated graphic depicting various motifs, images, and concepts that closely relate to her brand and things that correlate with her previous works of art.

I included images such as cars, butterflies, flowers, ornate decorations, space-related graphics, a butterfly, and many other different concepts. I was able to design a poster style graphic that could fill the entire space on the back of the branded tee shirt and applied the Spring Concert logo seamlessly to the bottom of the graphic. Her team and mine were both very happy with the end result, and fans of KE$HA were very excited to get their hands on one.