GRAPHIC DESIGN @
MOODY CENTER
Design InternMay 2024 - May 2025
Junior Graphic DesignerMay 2024 - May 2025
Supervised by Avery Elkins
“Moody Center is a $375M, 15,000+ seat premier venue featuring over 150 nights a year of unique entertainment. Moody Center features the best and biggest names in the music industry while hosting The University of Texas Women’s and Men’s basketball games, family shows and other sporting and local events.”
Beginning in May of 2024, my year long internship with the Moody Center has comprised working as a part of the creative division of the marketing department, reporting directly to and working closely with creative manager Avery Elkins. My primary output in this role has been creative custom, day of show graphics for the multitude of artists who perform at the venue. Sourcing inspiration from the artist’s music, aesthetic and background, we create graphics to honor their appearance at the venue to make them feel special. On top of this, I also work on in venue signage and social media content.
Wall Graphics
These wall graphics are displayed near the artist dressing room and promoter room where artists hang out before the show begins. Adorned with the promoter logo’s, these serve to make the artist feel special from the moment they walk into the venue, and are not released to the public/sold as merchandise. Typically, these wall wraps are created based on artwork for custom posters created for the artists, which presents a unique challenge of transitioning from a vertical to horizontal layout.
JOJI5 SECONDS OF SUMMERMADISON BEERROMEO SANTOS & PRINCE ROYCESTEVIE NICKSCARDI BLOS TIGRES DEL NORTEJEFF DUNHAMHAIMPLAYBOI CARTIPIERCE THE VEIL
MISSY ELLIOTLINKIN PARKROD STEWARTMITSKIGRUPO FIRMECAGE THE ELEPHANT
CONAN GRAY
TWENTY ONE PILOTSHANS ZIMMERVAMPIRE WEEKENDALANIS MORISETTEFUERZA REGIDA
Show Posters
These show posters are printed out at 18x24 inches and given to artists and promoters to conmemorate their show at the venue. The artist also signs two copies, one of them going into our display cases in the office and one being auctioned off for our yearly benefit auction. Given their lasting significance and presence in the venue, these graphics are the most pivotal out of the day of show graphics that we produce.
Why are these important?
These day of show(DOS) graphics comprised the majority of my output at Moody Center, and were primarily overseen by the branding department, and all were approved by company executives and, at times, the concert promoters.
Of the above posters and wall graphics, various were posted by their featured artists on social media, shining their spotlight on Moody Center and boosting brand awareness and social media following. It also builds good faith with artists and promoters, showcasing that Moody Center goes above and beyond to accomodate these artists.
Copies are given to artists, promoters and event staff. Signed copies of event posters are then auctioned off to benefit local organizations through Red River Rising. These graphics are also reduced to a postcard size, of which 25-100 are ordered and provided to tour crew to send back to their friends and family. Additionally, they are made into 3x3” coffee stickers and Moody Center invites local coffee vendors to the venue to provide free, branded beverages to tour staff.
Backstage Pass
Backstage Pass was an event hosted in early 2025 that invited local students, primarily from The University of Texas Austin, to come into the venue and get educated on various aspects of the live music/entertainment industry. It offered resume building workshops, roundtables with members of the industry and a tour of the venue.
For this project, I was tasked with establishing a completely unique brand and to maintain graphical consistency across countless graphics, from lanyards to schedules to presentations.
For this project, it all began with the invitiations, sent out to various Texas colleges and institutions. What I wanted to go for was a very youthful, grungy aesthetic that college kids tend to gravitate towards.
To accomplish this, one of Moody Center’s brand typefaces, Benton Sans, was adjusted to have simulated ink bleed. On top of this, a distressed brush was utilized to mask out parts of the text/imagery, allowing for these elements to look faded and irregular.
For the schedule, this style was reeled in significantly to allow for higher legibility. However, the bleed aesthetic still carries through and is present in all of the headers.
The most challenging part of creating the schedule was ensuring legibility, while still maintaining a consistent aesthetic with the previous graphics. The background was slightly lightened, employing a leather texture to allow the black text to pop more.
Presentation Template
With this project, fluidity was incredibly important, and countless people needed to be able to be able to make changes to graphics on the fly. Sponsors would shift, event times would change, and revisions to copy could be ordered at any point. Not being able to take on all of this myself while still completing my other tasks, a presentation template was created and uploaded to Canva with various different layouts.
Event Invitations
As a part of our premium and partnerships wing, Moody Center provides invitations to various events both in and out of state. These are sent out to members along with an RSVP link so they can confirm that they will be attending. For these, the emphasis on maintaining consistency with Moody Center’s core brand is loosened, and we’re allowed to experiment more with the layout/colors/typography.
Pitch for 311
While artists have to pitch themselves to venues, sometimes venues pitch artist’s management for them to host their event. In this instance, Moody Center crafted a pitch to entice 311 to come place at the venue. The pitch highlights Moody Center’s unique offerings and what we can do to make the artists feel “special.” Designing it at 8.5x11 allows for it to easily be printed at its correct size/aspect ratio by anyone, regardless of technical ability or printing literacy.
Moody Awards
The Moody Awards is an initiative to honor the best performing shows at the venue, specifically targeting promoters and members of the booking team. If your show won an award in any of the categories, you would receive a Moody Award in the mail, coming with a metallic hand and a set of branded drumsticks to insert between its fingers.
As part of the package, I designed this card that showcased how to assemble the award.
It was designed in black and gold to convey class and brand the event as something premium/exclusive.
Giveaways /
Seasonal Offers
Moody Center, on various occasions, runs giveaways and seasonal discounts on tickets as social media campaigns. These campaigns typically are allowed to stray from the core Moody Center branding, but must be approved by various departments. These campaigns generate a large boost in sales for the featured shows and generate significant engagement on social media.
Holiday Giveaway
The aim with this campaign was to design something that was inclusive of all forms of holiday celebration while still maintaining connection to the season. To accomplish this, a green layout was selected, omitting the red which would explicitly tie the event to Christmas. An asset library of various shapes were created before settling on the stars/sunburst for most graphics. The typefaces were selected for being expressive and bold, allowing them to stand out from our typical branded posts.
Valentine’s
The aim with this campaign was to design something that was inclusive of all forms of holiday celebration while still maintaining connection to the season. To accomplish this, a green layout was selected, omitting the red which would explicitly tie the event to Christmas. An asset library of various shapes were created before settling on the stars/sunburst for most graphics. The typefaces were selected for being expressive and bold, allowing them to stand out from our typical branded posts.
Holiday Posts
Moody Center tries to stay on top of important holidays and months, highlighting the impact of various different groups and communities on Austin, the music scene, and the world at large. For these posts, we generally try to incorporate music/our events to some extent, in order to connect our brand to the issues we are discussing. These posts are also allowed to have a unique aesthetic from other brand posts, ensuring they feel fresh and different when they pop up.