Illustrating the Diversity of the DC Design Community
Every year AIGA DC organizes DC Design Week—a festival celebrating design culture in the nation’s capital. Each iteration rebrands around a single idea. In 2018 I took the lead as Communications Director to share the message: Design is for All. Through character-driven illustration inspired by real folks in the community we showcased the breadth of skills, peoples and industries designing in the DMV.
As Communications Director, I led brand development and marketing. I tapped friend and NPR Illustrator LA Johnson to develop a set of characters inspired by designers in the community and the range of tools they use.
Daniel Crane breathed life into LA’s characters, animating their features and expanding their personalities.
With this collection of assets, strategist Kim Stockley, designer Rebecca Price and I developed graphics and videos for proliferation across web, email, social media, GIPHY, posters, signage, presentations, stickers, pins, buttons, et al.
Chelsae Blackman and Marcus Relacion tackled the web build and Ryan Von Dolen plotted all events on a bespoke Mapbox map. Ben Abraham directed photo documentation. Justin McCarthy wrote copy for anything and everything. A truly awesome team.
Liz Rose Chmela stood at the top of the DC Design Week pyramid, executive directing, leading the programming team and coordinating with my marketing team’s efforts.
The week was a blast: we sold out events, increased memberships to AIGA, and had a fantastic time meeting new people. The whole thing took a village and it was inspiring to work with so many talented volunteers.
