Refresh Dance Crew
2022 / Brand Identity, Photography
A brand identity revamp for Northwestern’s largest student-run dance team, aiming to reflect the dynamism of the members and dance style.
As the Design & Branding Chair, I collaborated with the (Dance) Artistic Director to define the visual identity and created all graphics on my own.
A brand identity revamp for Northwestern’s largest student-run dance team, aiming to reflect the dynamism of the members and dance style.
As the Design & Branding Chair, I collaborated with the (Dance) Artistic Director to define the visual identity and created all graphics on my own.
Brand Manifesto
In this revamp, I sought to evoke core qualities of Refresh: dynamic, gritty, and scrappy but self-assured. Refresh is known for having many members with no formal dance training and often has a dance style with grimy textures, so I wanted to capture that built-from-the-ground-up energy.
To achieve this, I treated typography & the logo with an ink bleed effect and heavily incorporated photography into graphics. Additionally, I sometimes distorted photography with an inverted gradient map and applied grain & a lo-fi printer/scanner texture.
Seamless Motion
To reflect Refresh’s dynamism, graphics (which are really just one long graphic) are posted as carousels on Instagram and are designed so elements seamlessly bleed across slides as you swipe. I wanted to create a dance-like flow in the process of viewing graphics itself.
Photography
I also photographed over 50 members for Refresh’s annual spring show concepts twice: “REFRESH RELOADED” (grimy and dark) and “REFRESH: THE UNIVERSE” (futuristic, clean). These photoshoots promoted the show concepts, which are typically more aesthetically wide-ranging than the team’s usual brand identity.
