Carolina Jazz Festival 2013
A motif of rippling ribbons drums up interest for an annual music festival with a diverse slate of performers.
I was pleased to again create the look for Carolina Jazz Festival, one of my favorite annual projects. Founded in 1977, the Carolina Jazz Festival not only sponsors internationally renowned virtuosos, but it also hosts performances by local and campus artists and a competition between North Carolina high school jazz ensembles. Visiting artists provide workshop sessions for college students and jam sessions for the general public, among other events.
The client had noted that this year’s performers are a particularly diverse, international group, with headliners hailing from Cuba, Brazil, and the United States—which suggested a potentially bolder, more vibrant appearance than that of years past.
I played around with the concept of the ripple effect, in which a small change or movement translates across time and distance to become much greater. The client and I settled on this solution—two rippling ribbons of color that ebb and swell around the word “jazz” set in large type. Applications include a poster, a performer certificate, images for the event programs, and a display of sponsors and donors.
In this alternate concept, I created geometric letterforms for the word “jazz,” and then made an abstract, kaleidoscopic pattern with them that suggests the shifting rhythms of jazz.
