TEDxOhioStateUniversity: Echo

ART DIRECTION • BRAND IDENTITY • DIGITAL DESIGN • PRINT DESIGN • PRINT PRODUCTION

Collaborators: Ananya Muddappa, Suyeon Chae, Zoei Tee, Sydney Greenwell, Emily Tanchevski, Liann Trahey

TEDxOhioStateUniversity is a student organization on OSU's campus that hosts TEDx conferences annually. As the Director of Design, I played a big part in our event branding and overall creative direction. This past year, our main event theme was Echo. This represents the a celebration of voices that ripple beyond beginnings, helping shape minds, spark conversations, and inspire change. With the help of my 6 committee members, we crafted an intricate brand identity along with marketing materials to help promote our event to people in the Columbus area.

To learn more about the event itself, click here.

Event Branding

For TEDxOhioStateUniversity's 2024 conference, Echo, my team developed a bold visual identity inspired by the theme’s core concept: the ripple effect of ideas. The branding features wave-like imagery, soft gradients, and a vivid color palette to evoke movement and energy.

The combination of motion-driven visuals and futuristic typography created a cohesive and immersive experience across print, digital, and stage assets.

Social Media Theme Reveal

As a team, we collaborated to create a series of animated Instagram posts for our theme reveal campaign. The campaign featured a five-day countdown leading up to the official reveal, which took place in December, three months ahead of our main event.

Digital Signage

I designed a digital sign displayed across campus screens at Ohio State University to drive traffic to our website and boost brand visibility among students.

Event Flyers

I designed and distributed two types of flyers: one Echo themed and one featuring general TEDx branding. These were strategically placed around campus and handed out during street flyering in downtown Columbus to maximize visibility and engagement.

Speaker Release Posts and Flyers

The team designed a series of Instagram posts highlighting each speaker along with their biographies to build excitement and encourage engagement leading up to the event. Additionally, we created speaker-specific flyers that were posted in relevant campus buildings to attract targeted audiences and generate interest in both the event and individual talks.

Speaker Symbols

Each speaker was represented by a unique symbol inspired by their talk topic, contributing to a cohesive visual language that reinforced the overall brand identity and aided audience recall.

Speaker Posters

We also made speaker posters as a fun addition to help the audience recognize the speakers and potentially have conversations with them during the intermission.

Event Programs

We made event programs to provide audience members with more information about the organization and our speaker lineup.

Tshirts & Stickers

Our team designed custom T-shirts worn by all 47 team members on the day of the conference, reinforcing a strong, cohesive visual identity and helping attendees easily identify team members for support.

We also created and distributed branded stickers as memorable and engaging takeaways for both attendees and staff!

Stage Screen Assets

For the main conference, we produced a dynamic opening video that was presented to over 400 in-person attendees as well as livestream viewers. In addition, we created custom animated clips for each speaker, featuring their talk title and personalized symbol. These animations were looped on-screen during their presentations, adding visual interest and seamlessly complementing their slides.

We also designed the slideshow visuals projected on the two side screens and animated speaker symbols for the center screen, introducing subtle motion to maintain audience engagement throughout the talks.

Final Thoughts

This year-long project marked my first venture into art direction, which offered invaluable lessons in mentorship and collaborative teamwork. I had the opportunity to guide my teammates in generating ideas and provided encouragement throughout the design process for each deliverable. The most rewarding moment was sitting backstage and watching our collective work come to life on stage!