Sushi Pitch Night
Sushi Pitch Night is one of the Brown University Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship (NCE)'s culminating events for their summer startup accelerator program, B-Lab. It's a dynamic space where investors, community members, and fellow students get to hear the founders pitch their startups and for founders to connect with potential investors and the general public. As the NCE's Digital Media Assistant, I pitched and planned the social media campaign for the event and designed all the materials.
The Mission
What work was cut out for me?
Design a digital brand identity for the Sushi Pitch Night event that is
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Minimalistic, adaptable, and reflects the innovative energy of the event
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Reflects the NCE's existing branding and identity
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Remains cohesive with the existing branding of B-Lab
Design a social media and marketing campaign to promote the event by
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Recording 90-second pitch interviews of all the startups
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Designing newsletter graphics
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Designing digital flyers for platforms such as Instagram
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Posting and promoting the event on social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and more
Design physical materials for the event such as
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Paper fans as event programs as a callback to previous iterations of the event
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All wayfinding signage
Ideation and
Revisions
(click and drag to see my work!)
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Final Designs
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Matching B-Lab and NCE's minimalist white backgrounds
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Using red from the B-Lab Logo and Brown University's official colors
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Sophisticated and clear imagery of hands eating sushi that could be adapted to all media materials
Social Media
I adapted the previous designs to fit several formats such as for posting on LinkedIn and Instagram. On Instagram, I planned around preexisting posts and other scheduled posts for the program to create a dynamic and pleasing layout for the program while simultaneously posting several times to remind our audience of the event.
Wayfinding Signage
Reflections!
What did I learn and take away from this experience?
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Designing within strict time and brand constraints
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Due to the varying schedules of those on my team, I often received feedback from different members at different times. This resulted in short-notice and major revision requests throughout the entire process. Although challenging, I found it pushed me greatly as a designer, and I learned to mold my creative process so that I could navigate such high stress environments.
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The NCE and B-Lab already had a very distinct branding established, including specific colors and aesthetic, and I had to adapt my own voice to fit within that.
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Creating simple and minimalistic imagery that is adaptable
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Additionally, due to the scale of the event, I had to create a design that could be easily adapted to several different formats (programs, flyers, newsletter headers, LinkedIn event headers...) but was visually cohesive and easily recognizable for all audiences on all platforms.
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I learned the importance of space, negative space, and how sometimes truly less is more. I also learned that compositions can look full even with few individual elements, and the power of symbolic imagery in marketing design especially.
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