01. Research + Discovery

Problem:

My undergraduate design class needs a visual identity for the big senior thesis show coming up! This show is our final bang before we graduate, and each project is so unique! How will we come up with an idea that encompasses 40 different projects?

Research:

Looking at my classmate's works

My teammates and I looked at a master document showing our classmates work. There are 45 students in total, our job was to create one cohesive theme.

Our first step to doing this was create a list for common themes.

Emerging Common Themes

Stories
Culture
Experience
Interaction

Personal Relationships
Family
Narrative
Computing

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Coming up with our own themes

We then came up with more specific themes

Even more themes...

"pin it"
Collage, DIY
Processing
Identifications

Trees/Roots
Interaction
Family background/ cultural background

We decided on the theme of "roots" for our final brand identity.

02. Ideation

Discovery:

Setting up the Stage

My group mates and I decided to head to our trusty friend, Pinterest, for some inspiration and to create a mood board. I created a simple one to show what exactly my group and I were going for.

Sketching the Logo

Now that we have our theme, I went ahead and sketched out our logo for the brand identity. This is important, because it basically shapes the entire identity for the design. Fair warning: my design process is like a science experiment. I come up with a hypothesis, I execute it, I change things based on the results.

Let's look at all the ideas I came up with :D

Phase 1 - The Beginning

My initial sketches for our logo. I used interwoven as a placeholder, because our title for the brand identity was not yet finalized. I consulted my teammates about the direction of our logo + theme, to which many enjoyed the white transparent lines in the background with the darker lines from the type.

The logo to me felt like it was heading in the correct direction, but needed to be pushed more.

Let's make an actual poster design!!

Phase 2 - Making an Actual Poster

What we kept from these designs:

Background White Lines
Neuron "Sparks"
4 Corner Info Design

What we kept from these designs:

COLOR CHANGE!! the beige felt lacking, so we went with purple + gray
Centered Logo

But it still felt like there was something lacking...

Wanted to go more into the theme of neurons
Needed more direction, there was a lot of background noise and not enough rest for the eyes
Move away from the "branch" aesthetic

So I pushed more with the neuron idea and explored the composition of the poster more.

Phase 3 - Finalizing the Design

This design felt much better—and my teammates agreed. So let's finalize our design!!

03. Design

Design Kit

Final Designs

Poster Design (Created by Emerson Eng)

Instagram Designs (created by Karen Luo Ye)

Animation (created by Urooj Arshad)

Wall Mock-Up (Created by Hannah Yoon)

04. Results

So did my group win?

My group was Team 7, so we actually got 2nd place :(

but I think 2nd place is still good! And we only lost by 2 votes.

I still learned a lot for this project, and I feel proud of what my group and I accomplished in one week.

05. Reflection

1. Learnings

This project was done during my Spring 2025 Design Thesis Class. Through this class I got to learn more about exhibition design and designing for others.
I learned...

Letting go. Sometimes, a design needs to be let go in order to better it. I did that when creating the theme of our visual identity. Also, letting go of the loss. While doing the visual identity for my thesis class would have been fun, I also now have more time to do other things!
Creating a visual identity for a large group of diverse projects. This was my first time designing directly for a large group of people! I usually do not face my users, so it was nice to design for a large group I see.

2. If I had more time..

This was done in a very short amount of time with limited resources. I would love to flesh out a complete visual identity and also see what else I can do. I would love to give handouts like stickers :]

Between Nodes

TOOLS

ROLES

TEAM

TIMELINE