Yarning
Conference
Designer: Iris Pham
Dates: January 7 to March 4, 2025
Deliverables: Logo, Business Card, Guideline Manual, Poster, Banners, Booklet, Lanyard, and Merchandise
Materials: Printed Mockups and Yarn Strap
Instructor: Judy Armstrong
Overview
Project 1: Branding Logo and Guideline Manual
For this project, I was tasked to design a full brand identity for a fictional conference of our choice. It included a logo, a business card, and a brand guideline manual to ensure consistency between different materials. My conference is called Yarning. The main topics explore different yarn techniques, and how to turn yarn into sustainable hobbies. To highlight the conference theme, my logo is a yarn skein with three strokes in melon colour, creating the 'Y' letter. Yarning is also a slang for 'chatting' or 'a long story', so the yarn ball is also an abstracted speech bubble. The business card uses the primary brand colour, with the soft wave motif and yarn strands to tie back to the visual identity.
Project 2: Conference Materials
The second project goal is to develop more communications and promotional materials from the visual system created in Project 1. The deliverables consist of a folded poster, banners, lanyard, conference booklet, stickers, and textiles. To utilize and expand the visual identity, I incorporate more elements of yarn such as yarn textures, and handmade parts with more colours to depict the fun and friendly tone of this conference. For some applications like stickers and banners, I use more specialized illustrations and puns, which the conference attendees will understand and appreciate, to effectively promote the conference to the target audience.
Yarning Visual System Overview
Yarning 2025 Conference Deliverables
Access to Logo Guildeline Manual Digital Flipbook.
Access to Conference Booklet Digital Flipbook.
Reflection
Project 1
Even though I had a clear vision of the conference topic going into this project, the beginning was challenging because many yarn-themed conferences already existed. One of my goals was to create a visual identity that both reflected the topic and was visually appealing. In the end, I am satisfied with how my logo turned out, as it captures the essence of the conference. It is simple yet versatile, allowing me to adapt variations of the logo for different applications in Project 2.
Project 2
My experience with this project was completely different from Project 1. Having been a crocheter for 12 years, I thoroughly enjoyed creating the conference materials, as I was able to incorporate my crochet skills to handcraft some of the deliverables. At the same time, I faced challenges in expanding the visual elements for each piece while maintaining a consistent brand system. This project also gave me the opportunity to explore the work of talented yarn artists and craftivists around the world, and to acknowledge their dedication and creativity through my design.