Jazz Reggae Festival '09
The UCLA Jazz Reggae Festival is the largest student run event in the nation spanning 2 days and seating 30,000 people. Each year a designer is selected to be the official designer, and this year I took on that honor. As Creative Director I was put in charge of all brand identity, print work, web design, apparel design (in collaboration with Listen clothing), and advertisement (web + print) for the festival.
For this year’s festival, the theme was “A Culture of Change.” In honor of this theme I initiated a project of my own called “Who is your icon of change?” Visitors of the festival’s website would submit the name of a person who has represented change in their life. What was so enlightening to me about this project was 1.) how open these people were to me, telling me life stories that spanned 3 pages, and 2.) how many people in this world have made an important change in each of our lives. This project culminated in an entrance banner for the festival, where each of the submitted names created the background for the logo.
The overall branding of the festival is meant to be festive, fun, and flamboyant (isn't alliteration cheesy?). Bright colors were used in juxtaposition with black and white photography in order to represent a change from past to future, and more importantly present.
The festival has been in existence for 23 years, and this year the festival sold more tickets then ever in the history.