I'm Jennifer Steger and I'd like to tell you the story of how I came up with a festival like Curiosities. To summarize, I created a festival that I wish existed so I could attend. So what exactly is Curiosities? Curiosities is a festival for enjoyers of oddities, freak shows, carnivals, and circuses. This is a festival for the "outcasts" of society, as it is a place they can come together as a family and encounter people that share similar interests. It takes place over the course of three days in New Orleans, Louisiana. Curiosities will feature art galleries, vendors, musical performances, rides, and a freak show. It is a truly unique festival that enages all of the user's senses. It must be seen to be believed!
About me
The first thing I wanted to create was some kind of branding for Curiosities. I needed to come up with a logo and some color scheme ideas. My main idea was "side show on psychedelics." I wanted the entire festival to have a very unique feel, so I needed my branding and themes to reflect that. I ended up with a rather wide, robust color scheme.
The Making of
I then wanted to start working on my logo. I had already decided on the type treatment I wanted to use so I just needed to come up with the logo itself. Below you can see one of my pages of sketches and brainstorming. I wanted to integrate an oddity into the logo, as well as giving it a circus side show feel.
This is the image I decided to use for my logo. I wanted an oddity that people would know of. It seemed that most people were familiar with the concept of conjoined twins, so I went with one that was conjoined at the skull.
My next set of deliverables was outdoor advertising, and to create those I used the color scheme and logo I had already created. I made a list of different types of deliverables I wanted to create and started working. To show the level of detail that went into these posters and flyers, see below.
This is how the logo turned out. I used the above color scheme and the font I had chosen, then added the conjoined twin skull to create a unique logomark.
You can see all of the outdoor advertising on the "deliverables" page. From there I went on to create the web landing page and the animated web banner, which you can also see on the "deliverables" page. For the web page, I kept it clean and simple, but added in some circus elements like tickets and images of circuses and performers. Each section of the festival is laid out on the website and the musical performers really come into focus there.
After that, I went on to create the wayfinding for the festival. I had previously made the map for the website but it was really meant for the brochures I created. These brochures are available at the festival for guests to pick up and use to find their way. I also created a mobile app called the Curiosities Experience that guests can download and use to get around as well. You can view all of these on the next page.