The Lab

Cyber Sleuth is an online event where participants are invited to digitally solve a crime. Designed by Diana Lee, the campaign design is based on the online aspect of it and added graphics to mimic a digital glitch. The background is made to subtly look like old TV scan lines and the distorted effect in the title helped add to that. Join in on this virtual murder mystery event (UNIQUE Programs promises no glitches!) tomorrow, Thursday, February 4 at 7:30 pm. It's FREE and open to the public, but pre-registration is required to receive Zoom info and directions. Visit www.SacStateUNIQUE.com for more info!

UNIQUE Programs' first Nooner of the Spring is tomorrow, Wednesday, Feb 3 at 12 pm featuring indie rock with Jayson Angove! Kenji Enos designed this campaign. On his inspiration: "The forms of the design come from his smooth sound and melancholy tones with bright notes of hope shining through."... Catch Jayson LIVE at www.SacStateUNIQUE.com on Wednesday! Free and open to the public!

Diana Lee came in 1st place at the ACUI Regional Steal This Idea Awards in the category of Professional Open Category for her UNIQUE Programs Volunteer Profile Features. Congrats, Diana! To spotlight the amazing volunteers of UNIQUE Programs, our designer was asked to create 3 Instagram story templates that would highlight the volunteers’ interests and experience. Even though this program offers a wide range of events, it's most synonymous with hosting some very notable conce...rts. Because of that, the designer based her design for this 3-part story on the user interface of the Spotify app and adapted it to UNIQUE's branding. The first story template is an intro and is based on the music player where the album artwork is replaced by a photo of the volunteer. The second story template is based on a list of albums in their Spotify library; each blank "album artwork" square can be filled with personal photos or gifs to describe what makes them unique. For the third story template, it's based on the look and feel of a customized song playlist that instead would list the volunteer's favorite events and a description of what they love about UNIQUE Programs. See more

Tonight, UNIQUE Programs will be hosting a virtual detective game- Follow Me: The Engagement. Particiapants will video chat with fellow sleuths, scouring the internet and the virtual world to find clues to save a fellow detective. There are still a few spots left- register at www.SacStateUNIQUE.com. Erin Umipeg designed the collateral for this campaign. On her inspiration, she says : For the Follow Me virtual detective game my concept was based off of research I did from the ...company’s website and trailer for the virtual game. I noticed they featured newspapers, different types of fonts, and other items based on mystery. I decided to crumple up a newspaper article and scanned it into the computer. I then combined various transparency and multiply effects to the various layers in order to create some texture and dimension for the background. Within the main logomark for the title of the event I used the O in Follow and the stem of the M in Me to create a magnifying glass. Just a subtle nod and extra implied element to help convey the genre of the event. See more

Kenji Enos came in 3rd place at the ACUI Regional Steal This Idea Awards in the category of Professional Apparel for his Spirit Friday shirt design. Congrats, Kenji! Every year The University Union encourages school spirit via a program called Spirit Fridays. The goal is to encourage students to wear their Sac State swag on Fridays. We have a prize patrol that walks through the Union offering up goodie bags for any students rocking that green and gold Hornet pride. Last year we decided to create Spirit Friday Shirts for student and full-time staff to show their school spirit on Fridays as well. The design of the shirt was pulled from elements in the main campaign that promotes Spirit Fridays.

Placing 3rd in the Professional Poster category of the ACUI Regional Steal This Idea competition is Erin Umipeg for The Color Wild concert. Congrats, Erin! For The Color Wild poster, the designer wanted to explore with paint, color, and type. She experimented using different colors of paint and different sized brushes to achieve colorful textured letters and words to write out the band name, The Color Wild. The designer really wanted the focus to be on the title so she left that as the only component highlighted in color, the rest of the information for the campaign is hand written in sharpie, along with added texture on top. The goal was for the overall look of the poster to be based off of their high energetic, indie pop look and sounds and with her approach the band felt like that was achieved.

Patty Gomez came in 1st place at the ACUI Regional Steal This Idea Awards in the Student Banners Category for her Silent Disco design for UNIQUE Programs. Congrats, Patty! A silent disco is an event where people listen and dance to music played through wireless headphones. The designer wanted to make the message clear and show the headphones for those who may not know what a silent disco is. She also wanted to portray rhythm through the type so that when seen together with the human silhouette it communicates that the music is within the headphones. She added a glow to give off a lively and energetic vibe. The colors for the type were also chosen to show vibrancy and to make the title pop through contrast.

Placing 1st in the Student Brochures category of the ACUI Regional Steal This Idea competition is Patty Gomez for the Spring 2020 Visiting Artists Brochure for our Union Gallery! Congrats, Patty! The designer for this project was tasked with creating collateral to promote The University Union Gallery’s lineup for Spring 2020. The designer was given full creative freedom with not only the design but also the format. She felt this was a good opportunity to start with a physical... solution and utilized watercolor, alcohol inks, and white acrylic paint for the floral elements. She painted the white flowers on a plexiglass surface so that it would have a layered effect when placed on top of the watercolor and alcohol ink. This ended up being a completely experimental design which seemed appropriate since many artists begin their projects through experimentation. Additionally, the use of different mediums embodies an abstract and expressive quality. The designer opted to use bright colors and flowers to fully embody what spring is all about, blossoming and growth. See more

Placing 2nd in the Student Flyers category of the ACUI Regional Steal This Idea competition is Camille Carandang for the Afro Hip Hop dance class campaign! Congrats, Camille! Before beginning this project, the designer had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Melissa Muganzo, the instructor for this Afro Hip Hop dance class. Muganzo described the event as "flavorful, feel-good, and fun." The design direction for this campaign was based on those three words while using the patterns from the traditional African textiles to convey fluid movements. The overlapping of patterns represents the traditional clothing they use. The designer worked with the colors found in the Pan-African flag to further highlight Black History Month.

Placing 1st in the Student Flyers category of the ACUI Regional Steal This Idea competition is Hagen Wehde for the Mr. Hooper, hip hop concert campaign! Congrats, Hagen! For the Mr. Hooper Nooner concert the designer had gone on the artists website to read up on his bio to get a look at his style through his tour photos and listening to some of his music. Mr. Hooper’s music has the sound of old school hip hop and rap. The beats sounded much like the early years of rap with boom bap rhythm so the designer wanted to go for an old school street graffiti style. Incorporating handwritten fonts to give off the feeling that they might have been spray painted by hand along with a very exaggerated spray paint drip found in the Mr. Hooper name and in the grime art that wraps around Mr. Hooper himself.