From September 2018-October 2019, I did all the graphic work for Kisetsucon’s first year (October 13th 2019). Kisetsucon is an anime, & Japanese culture convention in WNY.
Logo
First thing first was a name. We decided on “Kisetsucon” (“kisetsu” means season in Japanese) because the con chair, Joe Oh, dreamed of having a few fun seasonal events held by the staff eventually leading up to the full big event. Even if Spring seems “short” some years, in Western NY we get to experience every season. Joe wanted to take advantage of that and have our attendees look forward to each seasonal event.
I wanted to incorporate leaves into the logo because that’s the main motif for seasons.
My preliminary logo ideas
Final logo in full color & single color
Inaugural Advertising
An example of my “Meet the Staff” social media graphics
We started out with simple print advertising at local cons, and once the first version of the website was created by Joe and Brandon, I added the URL into every print ad and web graphic.
On Instagram you only get a profile picture image so we decided to keep the tree motif as the primary focus for that.
On Facebook, we used the tree motif as the profile photo and then had room to add the date & website on the cover photo once it was solidified.
On Twitter, we also used the tree motif as the profile photo and then had room to add the date & website on the cover photo once it was solidified.
I made a lot of graphics advertising which conventions staff would table at, small events staff would run, follower count thank-yous, etc. Here’s some of my favorites before Twitter changed their recommended dimensions in spring 2019.
I also made Facebook event & group cover photos, but those always had the same information as the main Facebook page & Twitter cover photos, so whenever those had to be updated I updated the group & event cover photos as well to match.
Tablecloth for tabling at other events
Guest Advertising
Once summer 2019 came around, we started getting super busy. Twitter changed their recommended graphic dimensions so I had to re-do a lot of work but I also decided to update our branding style a bit, especially since we started announcing our amazing guests and I wanted their graphics to look really sleek to bring in more attendees.
These are my claim to fame and my absolute favorite work I’ve done for the con. I started creating graphics like this where our logo became secondary (so it needed to be the single-color version), and the pictures became more important! These were featured on our website homepage as well at the time in a “card” carousel. I am incredibly proud of these because both Xanthe and Faye complimented me on how much they loved my graphics; both these and the character ones below. Xanthe even asked for my business card and I was insanely flattered.
There were countless more that I made, but these are probably my most favorite character graphics for social media that I made featuring our voice actress guests. These specific ones also garnered the most traction out of all the character graphics I made. Our VP Brandon typed up little clever trivia/facts about each character to give our marketing some spunk as well. I could tell Xanthe and Faye really liked them, since they kept retweeting them on Twitter – but actually hearing their praise to me in person was surreal. It made me realize “wow, I really am good at what I do.”
More Summer Advertising
Some other graphics made over the summer leading up to the convention.
Our final flyer!
We got our mascot Akina chibi-fied by our friend Kelvin at ThinkNu Official, so we added her to our social media cover photos.
I put ThinkNu’s Chibi Akina on our last social media graphics, as well as our staff member Allister’s anime version of Akina. We were planning to have a normal cut-off date for pre-registration, but due to high demand Joe opened up the day-of price registration before the convention, hence the “Full price reg is now available” copy.
Shirts & Day-of Advertising
T-shirt design for “Founders” badges. Founders are people who spent 100$ USD to help donate to our first year. This was a big perk they got for helping us! Our mascot Akina was drawn by our staff member Allister here.
My Staff t-shirt design.
Badge designs. We used business card sizing since it was the cheapest option for our first year. Chibi Akina drawn by ThinkNu.
24×72 Welcome standing banner. Akina drawn by our staff member Allister.
Example of a room sign
24×36 Map & Schedule sign
My fellow staff members & I wearing our Staff shirts that I designed, and our two VA guests in the middle (Xanthe & Faye!)
