client: TEDxOhioStateUniversity
project: In-Person Event Media

Motion and Visual Designer
with TEDxOhioStateUniversity

Horizons

TEDxOhioStateUniversity is a student run TEDx organization at Ohio State. The design committee's role is to create all of the graphics, motion, and visual assets for the organization. I had the pleasure of acting as the Director of Design for the organization during this academic year and therefore during Horizons—I developed tone and messaging that looked towards a bright future. I used those ideas to guide my designers in developing the brand while also contributing through my work as our team's motion designer.


Social Media Teasers


The Future Awaits

Horizons commemorates the 10th anniversary of TEDxOhioStateUniversity and therefore needed to be extra special. The concept was originally created to refer to looking towards the future of the organization, but it took on an even more important kind of optimism in the wake of all that was the year 2020. We developed a brand that was slick and modern. The word mark features a halo effect that is utilized across branded elements and comes to life with subtle energy in animation. The literal horizon and waves of energy also lend a space-y vibe to everything. This both reinforced the futuristic elements and also provided further direction for additional visuals.

Our First Virtual Event

The annual main event is typically a one-day in-person conference—but we had to change our approach in light of COVID. Working with my team, I developed the concept of a livestream designed to replicate the live feed we stream of our in-person events. We collaborated with a local studio to film all of our speakers on a green screen. We crafted rigorous health guidelines to ensure as safe a production environment as possible. I determined that a 3-camera setup would be closest to our in-auditorium configuration and gave us a nice profile, wide, and close-up view of the person speaking. Compositing was done in After Effects with plates of our usual event site.


Event Opening



Concept Art + Reference






Audience Engagement Experiences

Each year the design committee is tasked with creating a branded activity or experience for the lobby of our event space. When we began exploring how to approach something similar in a virtual format, I suggested we create Augmented Reality experiences for viewers to participate in at home. In my research I found that Snapchat’s Lens Studio and Snap AR platform was the most accessible and intuitive way to go about creating such an experience.

I worked with my team to come up with ideas for what two experiences might look like and they were able to easily build and distribute them through the platform. The first is a simple piece of AR branded “swag.” The second is based off the space filled with floating speaker icons featured in the event’s opening video. The AR version allows users to move their device around them in physical space to find each speaker.