MAASU 2017 • stone stewart

CATEGORY: CREATIVE DIRECTION

YEAR: 2016-2017

MAASU 2017

The Midwest Asian American Students Union (MAASU) is an annual conference hosted at a different Midwestern university every year. The University of Michigan won the bid to host the 2017 conference.

THE CONFERENCE + MY ROLE

MAASU works to recognize the needs of the Asian American community by assisting schools with the establishment of Asian American student organizations, promoting leadership among students, addressing educational needs and rights of the Asian American community, and developing a channel of communication among Asian American student organizations in the Midwest.

As creative director for the conference's executive planning committee I was responsible for conceiving and designing all the aesthetic and branding related material for the conference. As the examples below show, this spanned across many forms of media such as digital marketing materials, board photo shoots and theme, physical apparel, print media, and a 6 minute opening ceremony video.

The Logo

DESIGN CONCEPT

In the begginings of when MAASU 2017's executive planning committe, the quote: "Roots that ground us branches that connect us, colors that inspire us." was conceived and later became the three pillars of our conferece: Ground. Connect. Inspire.

The tree imagery depicted in the quote guided inspiration for the logo. I turned to the ginko tree, a prominent symbol in asian culture with its iconic leaves, to further inform the design of the logo. I wanted to pay homage to my own Japanese roots and used the city of Tokyo's symbol as a starting point for the design. The three petals of the final logo each represent one of the original quote's pillars and the colors chosen symbolize the diverse experiences that exist within the asian identity, much like how the primary colors can be used to create near vast mixtures of other colors.