Former logo of the Middle Eastern Student Association. Designed by a former member of MESA. The purple archways represent different eras of Middle Eastern history. The wordmark is set in an interesting typeface called Bremen. The logo had been around long enough that it held some equity, and the original members of MESA didn't want to let it go. I set out to see how I could improve on MESA's identity.
MESA organizes several film and documentary screenings a semester, and these promotional images show how little cohesion MESA graphics had. There was little in the way of a graphic identity for the club.

Firstly, I decided to capitalize on the name "MESA". It was short, friendly, and rolled off the tongue much more easily than "Middle Eastern Student Association". I created this lockup for when space is limited, or the logo is to be used in small sizes.

I refined some of the clever ways in which Bremen was altered with blocks of color. Most notably, I removed the diamond from the letter A and replaced it with a normal crossbar. I only wanted the E to have it.

You'll see why.

I created a vertically stacked shorthand logo. It looks great in exaggeratedly large or small sizes.

Rotated 45ยบ, the diamond in the E can expand and change sizes and dimensions to create a window for content. The effect is reminiscent of a movie projector.

The original MESA colors also had a lot of equity, so I refined those as well. I changed the purple to a darker violet, and changed its use to a base color when the graphic identity had a white background. However, most of the identity uses a black background, where white is the base.

Black was chosen as the main background color to give more importance to the Middle Eastern films and documentaries MESA showcases.

Pattern explorations.

I experimented with many different modernized Arab-inspired patterns for small details in the identity. I decided to employ the top row.

Instagram 4:5 post (Left). Facebook event banner (Middle). Ledger paper print flyer (Right).

A comprehensive template system was created so that screenings could be promoted through different mediums while maintaining a unified identity.

You can see the colors, patterns, and the rotation of the MESA logo to create a window of content.

The graphics would contain two compelling stills from the showcased film, with a green-blue gradient in the corner to tie it to the logo.

Detail of the Instagram 4:5 post (left), and ledger print flyer (right).

OTHER WORK

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