The Space Taking Artist Residencies
VISUAL IDENTITY
As part of its many resources and programs supporting local artists, Fresh Arts Houston hosts an annual artist residency known as The Space Taking Artist Residency program which serves as a launch pad for artists to “take over” a space for the purposes of developing and executing a creative project and hosting a series of public programs. In 2023 I was proud to contribute to these efforts by working alongside the artists to craft a trilogy of visual identities to support their programming.
DELIVERABLES
Art Residency Branding
Stop Motion Animations
Social Media Graphics
Templated Graphics
Print-Ready Assets
ROLE
Art Direction
Logo Design
Composite Design
Stop Motion
Summer of Salsa y Mas
BY TEXAS SALSA CONGRESS
"Summer of Salsa y Mas" was the year's inaugural artist residency, with Texas Salsa Congress "taking over" studio and outdoor spaces to invite community members to connect and create through dance and movement.
This design was strongly driven by imagery symbolic of Houstonian and latin dance culture. The artist was specific about their desire for the implementation of visual tangibility. The use of paper and granite textures were chosen to represent elements of the artists' desired art program, which included acrylic painting through dance, and paper collaging. The granite is reminiscent of a molcajete, a traditional mexican kitchen tool for mixing salsa.
Dancing Home: (To) Houston
DANCE AFRIKANA
Dancing Home: (to) Houston was a part of a larger project entitled Dancing Home. Conceptualized by Dr. Lindsay Gary, Artistic and Executive Director of Dance Afrikana, this iteration of the project explored (d)ancestry from the African continent via the larger African Diaspora and ultimately to Houston, and the exchange between these three dynamic cultural ecosystems, with a goal of further developing the infrastructure of Black dance in the city.
As such, the visual identity of the programming involved bright colors taken from Dance Afrikana's logo design and the dancers' costuming. Textures inspired by traditional African weaving patterns as well as a subtle topographic design element that connected the African continent to Texas were also integrated.
Telephone 2.0
KEELEY DUNNAM
The overall project concept of Telephone 2.0 was to create a unified, collaborative project with multiple artists of different mediums, using dance & movement as a catalyst to create other forms of art. The entire exhibit was made up of three sections that acted as a daisy chain of inspiration: (1) performance art, (2) visual art forms, (3) dance performance.
Keeley and I worked together to create visuals that focused on the collaborative nature and key messaging behind the project; the inspirational cycle of art forms. The cover showcases a moment of intimacy in a choreographed performance to symbolize the emotional connection amongst artists, their mediums and the art they inspire. The photo of the performers was then treated with a watercolor effect and laid over paper textures as an ode to visual art, while the typographic treatment held a more literal translation of the project concept.
