Case Study

Light Up The Sky – A brand built on newsprint

Every year, for independence day, Station Casino properties put on firework shows as a way of drawing in guests. Before I started working there, every property that participated would have their own branding, and that meant that quality and looks varied depending on which designer was assigned to it. These events can be huge, involving a ton of marketing materials from drink tickets to entrance signs to newspaper ads. 

I was approached near the beginning of 2022 about developing a unified branding for this fireworks display, it was going to be held at all properties so it needed a brand that wouldn’t clash with any property branding.

I discovered early on working in a corporate environment that for any new art project there are dozens of individuals that need to sign off before it can move forward. Since there are so many people involved, there can be arguments on design direction, so I like to provide a few directions to go in to allow my team a starting point for discussion. After researching previous work, what successful campaigns for something like this looked like, and deciding on the feeling I wanted to go for, I went to work creating a few options to build off of. 

 

Each of these options provided a different perspective of what this event could be, with a focus on the bright contrasts between fireworks and the night sky. 

At the same time I was developing this branding, our VP of Marketing had been dealing with a separate issue involving newsprint. See, we like to run full page ads in the Las Vegas Review Journal, since a large chunk of our target audience is likely to still subscribe to physical newspapers. Some of our darker ads revealed a usability issue, since newsprint can sometimes bleed with heavily saturated color blocks, some of the thinner fonts were getting drowned out. 

With this usability concern already top of her brain, the VP suggested, after seeing the first of my branding options, that we try to re-design this brand for newsprint. She knew this was a large enough event that we would be putting it in the newspaper each year, so ensuring it was clear and legible on that medium was essential. 

So, I took that feedback and her experience and went back to the drawing board, developing a new brand that would be optimized for newsprint. It wasn’t easy, as most firework based designs involve dark backgrounds, so I had to consider a look that worked well on white while still translating a fun nighttime fireworks event. 

 

So, that’s how I came up with this new reversed look. After I had a solid grasp on the usability concerns, I was able to create something that worked for everyone. It proved effective on all mediums, and has been utilized for the past 4 years!



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Case Study
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Case Study

Light Up The Sky – A brand built on newsprint

Every year, for independence day, Station Casino properties put on firework shows as a way of drawing in guests. Before I started working there, every property that participated would have their own branding, and that meant that quality and looks varied depending on which designer was assigned to it. These events can be huge, involving a ton of marketing materials from drink tickets to entrance signs to newspaper ads. 

I was approached near the beginning of 2022 about developing a unified branding for this fireworks display, it was going to be held at all properties so it needed a brand that wouldn’t clash with any property branding.

I discovered early on working in a corporate environment that for any new art project there are dozens of individuals that need to sign off before it can move forward. Since there are so many people involved, there can be arguments on design direction, so I like to provide a few directions to go in to allow my team a starting point for discussion. After researching previous work, what successful campaigns for something like this looked like, and deciding on the feeling I wanted to go for, I went to work creating a few options to build off of. 

 

Each of these options provided a different perspective of what this event could be, with a focus on the bright contrasts between fireworks and the night sky. 

At the same time I was developing this branding, our VP of Marketing had been dealing with a separate issue involving newsprint. See, we like to run full page ads in the Las Vegas Review Journal, since a large chunk of our target audience is likely to still subscribe to physical newspapers. Some of our darker ads revealed a usability issue, since newsprint can sometimes bleed with heavily saturated color blocks, some of the thinner fonts were getting drowned out. 

With this usability concern already top of her brain, the VP suggested, after seeing the first of my branding options, that we try to re-design this brand for newsprint. She knew this was a large enough event that we would be putting it in the newspaper each year, so ensuring it was clear and legible on that medium was essential. 

So, I took that feedback and her experience and went back to the drawing board, developing a new brand that would be optimized for newsprint. It wasn’t easy, as most firework based designs involve dark backgrounds, so I had to consider a look that worked well on white while still translating a fun nighttime fireworks event. 

 

So, that’s how I came up with this new reversed look. After I had a solid grasp on the usability concerns, I was able to create something that worked for everyone. It proved effective on all mediums, and has been utilized for the past 4 years!



Post Views: 8
Case Study