FIRST NIGHT® MONTEREY 2026 | Poster Entry
OVERVIEW
Client First Night Monterey, Monterey County, CA. A local branch of the national nonprofit celebrating New Year's and local creatives through public visual and performing arts displays.
Goal Design an inviting visual identity for the First Night Monterey 2026 event and "We've Got the Beat" theme, applied to an informational poster and Adult and Youth "ticket" buttons.
Duration 1 Month
Website firstnightmonterey.org/Posters
CONCEPTING
Initial brainstorming depicted key images and emotions fueling First Night Monterey's artistic mission, including diversity, unity, and expression, along with ideas tied to the 2026 "We've Got the Beat" theme like rhythm and loudness.
Special attention was given to illustrating an eye-catching star symbol, a core icon of First Night's identity. Ultimately, a rounded form was chosen for its friendly, welcoming feel. This visual friendliness inspired a poster concept which adapts these stars as joyful characters, personifying the celebration's inclusivity through both artists and attendees.
POSTER
Initial iterations digitally refined the personified star concept, cementing and mixing key colors and iconography for the celebration and its artistic expression (like the palette guitar), especially the forms of the star characters. Equally important was defining the poster's descending layout and hierarchy, ensuring legibility from afar without diminishing the imagery.
Following iterations introduced recognizable symbols of Downtown Monterey (like the old clock and Golden State Theatre roof) to visualize the event's location, balanced contrast in the starry sky for readability, and adjusted unclear symbols like the moon drum.
BUTTONS
First Night Monterey's collectible adult and youth "ticket" buttons compress and remix the artwork of the poster, respectively. The largly derivative adult button simply adjusts the key visual and title to fit into a square aspect ratio.
The youth button, free for creative liberties, centers on a large green star character who makes every child a star, seeking to encourage their creativity with paintbrush and guitar he weilds. The sunset sky also symbolizes the youth Twilight Procession which celebrates the New Year earlier in the evening.
LEADERSHIP MONTEREY COUNTY | Yearbook
OVERVIEW
Client Leadership Monterey County, Salinas, CA. A nonprofit providing 10-month leadership training programs promoting public service and social action.
Goal Design a conceptual, informational, and eye-catching yearbook for the 2024 Leadership Monterey class, featuring highlights from the year and details on related organizations and opportunities.
Duration 1 Month
CONCEPTING
Initial brainstorming illustrated core ideals of leadership, including community, kindness, and future-thinking, as well as local qualities of Monterey County like agriculture and coastal environments.
Inspired by these ideas and the Leadership Monterey County logo, early concepts for the yearbook's cover feature hexagons and arrows pointing right, symbolizing the future-thinking class of 2024.
COVER & SPREADS
Before design began on the interior spreads, the cover concepts were refined digitally to include brand colors and an inner cover design. Of the two compositions, the hexagon design moved forward, closer resembling to the nonprofit's brand identity.
Initial iterations for the interior spreads focused on layout, arranging provided written content and imagery for readability and visual hierarchy. Later iterations focused on improving the yearbook's look and feel, adding colorful hexagons across the spreads and behind the page numbers to embed the theme into the content.
PERFLECTION | Packaging
OVERVIEW
Goal Design a typographic package inpired by one of the seven deadly sins to present a conceptual company and its products.
Result Created Victory Vanity, an elegant high fashion and luxury beauty product line. Designed a striking and meaningful package for the Perflection beauty mirror.
Duration 1 Month
CONCEPTING
Early concepting sought to capture the sin of pride at surface level, lining the box with statements which both advertised the mirror product and inflated the reader's ego.
The bottom right concept expanded this idea further, splitting the box in half with a "mirror" where the statements on the right side focus on the prideful person while the left side focuses on the "lesser" people they hurt. It also introduced the product name "Perflection", or the Perfect Reflection.
PACKAGING
The "Perflection" concept, being most promising, was adapted digitally. The light, pastel colors on the exterior seek to reflect the calming aesthetic of beauty products and salons, with the bright gold and dark purple (the color of pride) capturing a regal, luxury feel. These colors were darkened through future iterations for vibrancy and text clarity.
The darker inside of the box also introduces a new angle to the piece, with the lit up interior statements representing the prideful person's actual self-demeaning thoughts. The product insert tells them to "Never let me go" when the mirror is removed, being a valuable source of self-confidence for them which also may not directly harm others.
STUDY AT SEA | Brochure
OVERVIEW
Project Study at Sea, Monterey County, CA. A conceptual study abroad program offered by California State University Monterey Bay letting students learn on an ocean cruise around the world.
Goal Design an exciting trifold brochure which will convince students to apply to Study at Sea, outlining basic program information and the global locations to be visited in 2025.
Duration 1 Month
CONCEPTING
Initial brainstorming illustrated key concepts connected to college studies and ocean travel, from the learning, connections, and discoveries made to the surrounding wildlife and places explored.
Inspired by these ideas and the ocean-themed California State University Monterey Bay brand, early concepts for the brochure lean on imagery to help visually illustrate the Study at Sea experience, accentuated with the wave shapes, dark blue colors, and bold typographic style of the university's brand identity.
BROCHURE
Initial digital iterations for the brochure focused on layout, arranging provided written content and imagery for readability and visual hierarchy in line with the sketch. Later iterations focused on uniting the visuals between each fold of the brochure by extending images, connecting waves, and fading out graphics near the edges. Text was also lightly scaled down or condensed as necessary to create additional white space for readability.
ADDITIONAL DESIGN | Posters, Brochures
