PITCHFORK MUSIC
FESTIVAL LONDON.
GRAPHIC DESIGN / VISUAL IDENTITY / SPRING 2024
OVERVIEW
IT’S MORE THAN JUST MUSIC.
Pitchfork is a publication that has been at the forefront of music journalism for many years. Each year, they host festivals in various cities across the world that feature a variety of artists. For this project, I created a mock visual identity for the London location that included an ad campaign. The campaign aims to boost visibility for the festival but also for Pitchfork journalism as well.
RESEARCH
TREND ANALYSIS
To start, I identified the trend of popup campaigns, particularly from two different perspectives: from a marketing perspective, and from a music artist’s perspective. From an artist’s view, popup events give fans a new way of interacting with music and give them more tangible ways of connecting. From the marketing perspective, I used the New York Times as an example. In 2023, they took over a train station in New York and transformed it into a branded experience that advertised their brand houses (pictured right).
These perspectives gave me good insights on how to create an effective campaign that increases engagement with new and existing audiences.
When developing the visual identity, I knew that I wanted to push myself past the more minimal aesthetics that I typically steer toward. As a result, much of the visual inspiration that I pulled from the project was very colorful, had a good deal of texture, and strayed away from traditional grid structures.
I found myself listening to a lot of house and electronic music as well. A lot of the visuals around these albums have the graphic style that I was aiming for, which added a new layer to my understanding of the design style.
VISUAL COMPONENTS
The palette for the campaign is composed of bright, punchy, contrasted colors that are slightly abrasive and eye-catching. The imagery is strongly tied to the palette, as all images used are desaturated and then have a color applied. Using various blending modes, the gritty textures on the image mixed with the typeface create an ample amount of noise.
Based on the more textured visual style that I had laid out in the mood board, I began looking for a typeface that fit the style. I decided on VISUAL by AllCaps Type; the pixelated edges of the characters plays into the glitchy and maximalist effect that I was looking for.
When considering motion graphics as well, the pixelated edges complimented the glitch effects. For further development, I would want to seek out a variable typeface and explore options with that technology.
I created mockups for both digital and print media advertising. For digital formats, I created a billboard advertisement using specs listed by Global Group, an advertising group with digital billboards all over the London Underground. I made both static and dynamic ads for these, the latter of which improved my motion graphic skills immensely.
I also developed print ads, ranging from traditional street posters to a train car wrap that highlights festival headliners and the festival lineup.
MOCKUPS / TOUCHPOINTS
