Arts Unplugged is a recurring series of events at Cornell University where the the College of Arts & Sciences opens up to the university and the wider community and celebrates cultural or scientific findings in a way that is accessible to everyone.
Given that one of the brand elements of the College of Arts & Sciences is the rectangle over the image, I connected the events visually by "breaking" the rectangle with shapes that hint at the topic or type of event it promotes.
Wynton Marsalis' talk and performance at Cornell, November 2021. For these events, I was inspired by Marsalis' charismatic stage presence and facial features. The first poster featured his first name "Wynton" hand-written with lusciously oval curves and the second his last name "Marsalis." The two would often be displayed side by side and so the two hand-written words connected them visually.
However, the organizers, insisted that the first poster also feature his face/photograph despite the subject matter of the talk. I made a compromise by re-writing "Wynton" so as to incorporate a hand-drawn portrait of him, where his trumpet would represent the bar in "t" and his head replacing the letter "o."
The Jazz trumpeter in front of the digital slide used to promote event across campus. The slide was also used as a background to his talk.
While I didn't design the inside of the performance program, I did design the front and back covers as seen above and below.
The "Wynton" drawing.
