2021
Branding | Web Design | Event Planning
Ligature 30 - Co-Creative Director
Ligature is the University of Florida’s student-run design symposium. This year, we celebrated our 30th anniversary and I was a Co-Creative Director for the event. During Ligature, my partner, Marci, and I branded, coordinated, and produced the weekend long event. Ligature features a gallery of juried student work, lectures by internationally recognized designers, and workshops by these designers for UF students to attend. As a Ligature Co-Chair, in collaboration with the other student members of the Graphic Design club and AIGA Gainesville’s student group, we worked to ensure an experience where students, faculty, community members, and established designers can connect and learn from each other. Unlike past years, Ligature 30 was hosted virtually. While this was a new experience for our program we pushed ourselves to make it as interactive and immersive as possible.
DESIGN GOAL
Create a visual system for Ligature 30. Use this theme to create a webstie and coordinate an event that adheres to that visual tone.
THEME
This year’s theme for Ligature was kinetic energy, action, and electricity. It is a celebration of design’s ability to tell stories, elicit lasting changes, and amplify voices. These past 2 years, social and political anger has come to a head and as designers, Marci and I reflected on the inherent inequalities present in the design world. But we also saw design as a tool of power that could be used to hear from those who are not often heard.
FUNDING
Due to the weirdness of 2020, our usual funding was unable to be secured. In order to appeal to UF Student Government, I created a video that tells the story of Ligature in under a minute. We were successful and secured funding to pay our wonderful speakers for the event.
SPEAKERS
To align with our theme for Ligature this year, we hoped to invite designers who provided a variety of stories and backgrounds. Antionette Carroll (left), an equity designer and inclusion specialist, held a workshop on redesigning for justice. She works within communities with the driving belief, “Like all systems, systems of oppression, inequality, and inequity are by design. Therefore, they can be redesigned.” Carroll provided a much-needed story for the event. We invited Alex Trochut (center), a Spanish artist, designer, and typographer, to hold a lecture on his story. He spoke about how inspiration can be found in all places and how well-designed words can act as images that elicit the tones that they may read. Finally, we invited UF grad Andrea Gomez (right), she provided much needed advice on becoming a working designer upon graduation during her workshop.
EXHIBITION
A portion of the Ligature event was dedicated to a student exhibition of design work. We saw over 90 submissions and after being juried by our invited speakers, only around 30 projects were accepted. Marci and I featured the projects on the Ligature 30 website and in the UF Gary R. Libby Gallery. Marci and I created videos to feature the digital work on the TVs and tablets mounted in the exhibit. For the student work that was available to be physically dropped off, we mounted and featured them in-person at the exhibit. Marci created a kinetic type projection to welcome visitors as they entered the exhibit, check out her process on her website!
Antionette Carroll's Workshop on Re-Design for Justice
COLLATERAL
As prizes to our student winners and gifts to our portfolio reviewers we created engraved acrylic key chains and stickers. These pieces featured branding elements.
