Photo courtesy Cameryn Richards
Every year, the fashion design department works with a graphic design major to create all the branding materials for the year’s fashion show. This year, junior Cameryn Richards was selected to create Fashion ’16’s logo after an interview with Roberta Gruber, head of the department of design. Lots of time and energy was spent perfecting the logo for the show. We had the chance to speak with Richards about the entire process of creating all branding material for Fashion ’16.
The Triangle: Tell us about how you got selected to create all branding materials for Fashion ’16?
Cameryn Richards: I am part of Graphics Group in Westphal. We’re a group of student graphic designers that take on outside work and are compensated for it. The professor that runs the Graphics Group, Joshua Gdovin, had worked with me before and heard about the opportunity from Roberta Gruber, the head of the fashion department. He was asked to select a group of students to interview with her and Catherine Byers for the job. I was selected along with one other junior and three seniors. The five of us all interviewed individually with Roberta and Catherine and they selected me out of the five to design for the fashion show this year.
TT: What was your initial reaction when you found out you were chosen?
CR: I was incredibly excited and surprised. I expected one of the senior designers to get the job. I knew it would be a fair amount of work, but I was honored to be the one designer selected.
TT: Tell us about the creation process of the logo with Roberta Gruber. Did she give you any specific instructions on what she wanted the logo to look like?
CR: Roberta gave me some initial direction from a sketch one of the other fashion professors had done, but I chose to really think outside the box and push it further. I did several initial sketches and met with Roberta consistently every week for four weeks. Each week I would present to her new material and changes we had discussed. The logo itself took about two weeks to really nail down but the process was smooth and successful overall.
TT: What sources of inspiration did you gather to create the logo?
CR: I gathered a lot of sources from textile books and old magazines. I wanted it to be very modern and androgynous, and speak to the direction that fashion is going in 2016. I was also inspired by modern art and architecture.
TT: Tell us about the design process – from the color palette to the typography.
CR: I started off by scanning the original sketch and making simple vector illustrations, and tried different iterations of silhouettes of a figure. I scanned in several sources of inspiration, from typography to illustration to textiles and played with combining them in various ways. Roberta and I had discussed that the color palette should be reminiscent of the spring season, so I chose colors like pinks, oranges and burgundies. Having a few focal points in the logo was definitely important to me, and determined the way I arranged the patterns within the figure. I chose to use the typeface Didot (bold) for the Fashion ’16 letters on the logo because I felt Didot was an elegant and sophisticated typeface with varied line weights. Didot was originally typecast in Paris and is evocative of Parisian culture and the enlightenment era, which I felt was reflected in the figure as well. Finally, I chose to break the type and figure up and shatter the silhouette just enough to create eye movement and guide the viewer’s eye around the logo.
TT: How long did the whole design process take you? How did it feel when you were done with designing the logo?
CR: The logo itself was settled after two weeks with some minor adjustments in the third week, so I felt it moved relatively quickly. I put a lot of time into developing the logo and I was proud of the end result. I developed another horizontal logo with knockout type to use across the other invitation pieces because I wanted the main logo to be used as sparingly as possible to give a dynamic effect. The entire system for the invitation, which includes the invitation itself, the large #11 envelope, the smaller A4 envelope and the take-home/directions card took about six weeks to finalize the designs for. In addition, I edited the Friends and Family letter and the ticket order forms. I also created several images to be used on Facebook and the Westphal website as well as the online ticket page. I also designed three T shirts, for sale and for the cast and crew, and a poster that has been hung around Drexel’s campus to advertise for the show, as well as the program that will be given out to audience members at each show.
TT: What are you most proud of looking at your design?
CR: I am most proud of the logo and the system I created. I think the system works well together and has several diverse elements that could be used in various instances, as they were for the fashion show. I am so honored that my designs will represent the 2016 Drexel Fashion Show.
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