FUSE production
Client | Bradley University
Date | Jan. 2022 – May 2022
Role | Art Director
project overview
As of November 2021, I was the Art Director of Bradley University’s FUSE event. This is a year-long project in Bradley University’s Interactive Media department, where 9 teams made completely of students produce a digital experience or game to be shown to the public at the end of the spring semester.
In addition to the Art Director position, I will also be working as a UX/UI and designer for FUSEbox, a new app that will be integrated into the day-of Fuse experience, and significantly increase the interactivity of the entire experience.
challenges
The annual FUSE exhibit had not been held for the past two years.
Not only had I not been present at any of the in-person FUSE events, but many of the people on the production team hadn’t either, including the director of the entire exhibit.
- My team spent a lot of time brainstorming, and the theme from the get-go became more complicated than was necessary or useful for other artists who needed to understand the theme, like the compendium reel animators.
- The FUSE website had usually been done by a team of students in a web design class. This fell through this semester, and as the only student who had experience in WordPress, almost all of the front-end work fell to me.
- At this point in time, I had almost no experience working on a team to a creative extend – much less leading one.
solutions
- We wanted to do “retrofuturism” as our theme, based around prints from the World Fair that unveiled the lightbulb – important icongraphy in our theme. However, this was a painterly style, and was more complex than the team as a whole was capable of, so we decided to simplify it to lightbulbs, plugs, and futurism.
- Although the designs for the site were all laid out, the sheet used for student information that was fed into the backend code this not translate onto the site, so there are many missing pieces of information on the site. I was able to mediate a lot of it by going in and manually adding information to the info sheet.
- This leadership position was invaluable experience, as I learned a lot about myself as a designer and developed a better understanding of my work styles and needs while working creatively with others.
early branding iterations
For this year’s exhibit, the theme was innovation. We wanted to take from the literal meaning of FUSE and align ourselves with early innovations, the most obvious of that being the lightbulb. The icon of a lightbulb evokes ideation and discovery. Further, connectivity and collaboration are expressed through plug iconography. All of these technological references underscore the “media” part of the Interactive Media Department, something that I felt like was sometimes missing in the past years.
shirt & lanyard designs
experience posters & awards
website ideation
final site
results
FUSE was April 30th at the Peoria Riverfront Museum for the first time in two years, with a record turn out of 2000 people.
It was a fulfilling and incredible experience to be able to visually put together an entire event for the people I was around every day, and for the community in which I lived.