DESIGNEDBYLIAMMCONTACT
/ OPEN FOR COMMISSION / VISUAL IDENTITY / POSTER DESIGN / BUSINESS CARDS / LOGOS / SOCIAL MEDIA / EDITORIAL DESIGN / PRINT DESIGN / BOOK DESIGN / ILLUSTRATION PARQUE DE PALOMAS
MUSIC FESTIVAL
Senior Project @ St. Edward’s University
St. Edward’s University / 2024
Supervised by Jimmy Luu
As an avid festival goer and music super fan, I’ve found myself continually disillusioned with visual identity concepts and execution from both events I’ve attended and those I hope to attend in the future. Festival branding appears to have stagnated, falling into familiar patterns, with the site of the event losing significance compared to where it stood as the industry emerged. That’s why, with my project, I aim to produce a music festival’s visual identity that subverts expectations, feels wholly unique, and draws significant inspiration from its host cities’ culture.
Thus, Parque de Palomas, a star-studded hypothetical music festival set in my hometown, Antigua, Guatemala, was born. Antigua, Guatemala is a town whose main character trait is being old; so old, in fact, the roads are made of cobblestone, colonial churches stand tall having been built hundreds of years ago, and horse-drawn carriages(until recently) could roam town and serve as taxis. When picking a location for my music festival, Antigua was perfect because, if I was able to succeed in making something feel new and authentic to a place that characterizes itself as “old,” that would be a testament that a music festival can be hosted anywhere and manage to be visually subversive, unique & captivating.
What is Parque de Palomas?
Parque de Palomas came out of a general sense of distaste for the music festival industry as a whole. I had just been to ACL in Austin, Texas for the second year and found myself somewhat disappointed in the branding that they had. I watched as ACL, Lollapalooza, Rolling Loud & more festivals shared their lineup posters on social media, and they all shared nearly the same layout: a rectangular text frame where all the artists are laid out from largest to smallest, with a blurred background of the cities’ skyline. They also had little clear symbolism of pieces of the cities’ people and culture.
I saw this as an opportunity to create a music festival that looks graphically different from the rest and incorporates more elements from the local culture.
Establishing
The Brand
When establishing the brand, I wanted to intentionally clash against the refined, ornate nature of existing graphics in Antigua, Guatemala. Antigua, being a UNESCO heritage site, tends to look very earthy, ancient, and refined. Graphics from there emphasize this sense of class, with cursive text and illustration being present in all artwork. For the voice of this brand, I want it to feel like an optimistic tour guide, guiding you through every piece of artwork with intrigue and excitement. The scale of this project, being a “city-wide music festival,” necessitates a consistent brand voice across all graphics, as it needs to feel like a cohesive story.
Antigua,
Guatemala
Before getting into the look and feel of this project, I think it’s incredibly important to get to know Antigua, Guatemala. Antigua is a city in Guatemala and is “trapped in time,” with colonial cathedrals and ruins still standing and roads, instead of being paved, being made of cobblestone. The city has an antique charm that draws significant tourism to the region, specifically from people from the United States and Europe. However, despite its colonial appearance and roots, the city is full of people living modern lives with modern struggles, sensibilities, and desires. While the city has not had many events for the majority of its existence, the local government has made attempts to modernize the city with free concerts and events in the central plaza, indicating a desire for modern events.
In addition, on top of all these colonial ruins pictured above, I’m sure you see another constant presence that may initially be quite unassuming...
The Pigeon
The pigeon was selected as a quirky way to brand Antigua, Guatemala that did not depend on the typical tropes of showcasing the ornate, colonial, and refined sides of the city. The hero of this project, the pigeon, also resembles the way that travelers coming to the festival interact with the colonial city, sitting around in it and observing(the festival), similarly to how pigeons observe human comings and goings. While pigeons may at first seem an odd choice to brand the festival on, the venue where it is held (Central Park Plaza) is full of pigeons 24/7, with vendors selling pigeon seeds and kids chasing them around the park.
Logo & Wordmark
For the logo and the wordmark, the pigeon is present in the “O,” effectively conjoining the logo and the wordmark at the hip. These lockups are compact and can fit in very small spaces while still being legible. To accommodate different sizes and space constraints, two more styles of the wordmark were produced, one with the main text being on a single line, and two where the text is aligned either to the left or right, allowing it to be paired with additional images or text on the other side.
Asset Library
The asset library was established to create a consistent grouping of symbols that could be mixed in with typographic and image elements throughout all the graphics. These assets correlate to various aspects of Antigua, Guatemala, such as the large freestanding cross that is a huge tourist attraction, the cobblestone roads, the pigeon (of course), and the arches present on Arch Street. Other symbols showcase different elements of Guatemalan culture, such as the Mayan pyramids and the volcanos.
Primary Posters
The lineup poster and day-by-day lineup posters were the first things I created after establishing the brand. They employed a grid structure similar to Mayan temples and utilized the asset library to fill in space that was left by artists’ names. All artist names have the same point size, but they are stretched and condensed to fit differing spaces to assert a sense of hierarchy. Instead of being largest at the top and smallest at the bottom, similarly to other festivals, my branding has the largest artists at the bottom, serving as the strong “foundation” of the pyramid, with smaller artists fitting in the top.
Day By Day Artist Highlights
The day-by-day Instagram posts are arranged in four sloped, pyramid-like structures. These lockups play with the scale of the asset library and, if arranged by a keen social media manager, can create a diamond shape that would make the festival’s Instagram feed look aesthetic and fun. Each day is a color coded to the general aesthetic and temperment of the artist’s performing on that day, allowing for easy distinction between days.
Artist Highlight Posts
For the artist's highlight posts, I played around with the scale of the assets in the library to be much larger, framing the images of the artists that are performing. This allows the layout to be much more playful and abandons the grid that is present on all the other deliverables. Each of these posts aims to be shareable and build excitement surrounding the event.
Street Flyers
These street posters and flyers would be placed all around an urban area. Their vibrant colors and large text are made to jump out at passerby pedestrians, and their simple layouts ensure that they can be understood quickly and with ease. These mark somewhat of a deviation from the rectangular frames found in other texts, but the grid structure is still there at the blueprint of these works.
TV & Billboard
Ads
These advertisements come in a variety of shapes and sizes but are primarily made to captivate attention and intrigue from people both thinking about attending the festival and those who are in attendance and are looking for activities/sights to seek out in Guatemala. A big goal for my festival branding was to encourage attendees of the music festival to look past Antigua and see what Guatemala has to offer as a whole. They are already (likely) flying a long way to get to this festival, and I want their tourism to be as beneficial as possible to the country as a whole. Hence, these advertisements promote further exploration and interaction with Guatemalan nature and culture.
LANYARDS
One of my biggest gripes with the music festival industry as a whole is that the ticket is often NOT collectible. While I understand the necessity to ensure people do not swap tickets with their peers, this comes at the expense of individual festival goers having a memento of the concert included with their initial purchase. That is why, for my festival, I will have lanyards be the primary form of entry, with an NFC chip implanted that will allow them to be used for credit card transactions WITH the usage of a PIN code. The potential risk of people swapping out their badges is something the festival is willing, with the hopes that security will be able to spot those without these bright colored lanyards.
Exhibition
Following the creation and presentation of this brand, students then had to take what they created and turn their work into an installation at a cumulative graphic design exhibit. For the exhibition, I knew immediately that the biggest challenge was going to be selecting what would go on the wall. After considering the options, I opted for fewer but larger pieces of work. I thought the best way to showcase all the subtle texture effects and layout choices would be to allow people to hold up a figurative magnifying glass to the work at a macro scale.
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ABOUT ME
Liam Molina is a graphic designer based in Austin, Texas, with experience in print, social media, digital, and branding design. Through his work, Liam aims to find a balance between maximalism, whimsicality, and vibrancy and measured, organized work firmly rooted in design principles. What keeps him motivated to continue creating is a genuine love and passion for design, as to him it represents an ever-evolving puzzle that is incredibly satisfying to solve over and over again. He is never afraid to take a risk, aiming to produce designs that feel new and subversive.