OYES Branding Workshop
One of the best parts of my gig is that I get to bring volunteer opportunities back into the classroom. For a few years now, I’ve been a member of the strategic planning committee of the Orlando Youth Empowerment Summit, which is a free one-day conference aimed at supporting the LGBTQ+ youth of Central Florida.
Following the 2018 event, the committee felt the need to rebrand the conference to better appeal to their target audience. They asked me if I would redesign, the logo, website, and establish a style guide that we could extend into other marketing collateral.
I agreed to help, but instead of forging ahead on my own I brought the project back to my students.
I hosted a half-day branding workshop for a group of student volunteers to crowdsource the effort. And also... who better to design a logo for youth, than, well, youth.
We did about an hour of research and brainstorming together and then the designers had two hours to rough out a concept. We did a round of feedback and then they had one more hour to refine their idea. From there we projected the designs for all to see and then voted on the top 3 that we wanted to send back to the committee for consideration. The students had the opportunity to present their logos if they wanted to contextualize their design choices or remain anonymous.
I was blown away by the quality of what these students were able to produce in such a short amount of time and by the way they supported each other through the process. Also fun to note that three of the most ahhhmazingist grads came back to share a bit about their creative process and mentor the group.
