Illustration | Design | Rebranding
Overview
Welcome to The Greater Austin Comic Con! Austins’ biggest comic convention three years running. The Greater Austin Comic Convention is a celebration that brings all things pop culture together with the Austin Vibe. It packs in two fun-filled days of entertainment that the whole family can enjoy at the beautiful H-E-B Center in Cedar Park! With its wide variety of guest celebrities, vendors, and artist alley, this is one event every Austinite should visit.
Greater Austin Comic Con
With this being the events’ grand return since the pandemic, the creators of the event wanted a complete rebrand to symbolize the rebirth of this great convention. With this in mind, the client would need a poster design and a logo that could be used from a wide range of merchandise.
The Challenge
Ideation and Insiration
For this project, I know I wanted to play heavily into the comic book theme. I hope to give my design a kind of hand drawn comic book page aesthetic. Also, I want to try a collage kind of feel with all different types of things not limited to comic books. I feel like this will work well to promote the event because it will show people who aren’t into comic books that a comic con is not just comics and that it’s anything pop culture.The most important thing that I want to communicate is fun and pop culture. I want the overall message to be this is a fun event and everyone is welcome to it and experience all things comic book and pop culture related.
Moodboard
I have three different type of moodboards with the two directions I decided I wanted to attempt.
I did a typography study to find some typefaces I felt might be useful and give me that comic feel. This poster is going to be type dominate, so I want to pick a typeface that will be visual pleasing and easy to see from a distance.
Sketches
Digital Drafts
Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Final Designs
Vertical Poster
Simplified Logo
Horizontal Banner
Badge Designs
Mockups
Reflection
I am very happy with the way this project turned out and am pleased with my results. Not only did I design a successful poster, but I also created 3 unique badge designs, a horizontal and vertical design, and a simplified logo to use on merchandise.
My final design was a poster with a big comic book page in the background and the lettering of “Greater Austin Comic Con” was cutout lettering of comic book logos. I felt this is a nice design because it brings attention to multiple comic book franchises. I aslo added a few silhouettes, one was a city skyline of Austin and the other was some recognizable super heroes. It was a little touch, but these elements helped tie together the comic book theme and the city of Austin.
My original design had handwritten subtext with the event information on it. I thought this was a great idea and played into the theme of the handmade comic book feel. For this, I took a piece of notebook paper, drew the information with a ballpoint pen and map pencil, tore it out of the notebook paper, taped it onto a piece of black construction paper, then scanned it into photoshop to make it a png. Although thus was a good idea at the time, I realized that it wasn’t legible. I ended up replacing this with a spraypainted typeface. This worked as well, sticking with the handmade theme.
Overall, the project was very successful and I had fun creating a brand for an event that I do care a lot about.