XOXO Festival
XOXO Festival 2019
A IRL gathering of digital natives.
XOXO is an annual arts and technology festival and conference for people who live and work online. The four day event brings together a myriad of creatives from gamers and videographers to podcasters and cultural theorists.
What we did
Design
Brand Identity
Illustration
Content
Print Collateral
Signage
Partners
Malcolm Lee Photography
Scout Books
T-Shirt Art: Erik Marinovich
Animations: Patrick Murphy
The Challenge
Each year the festival is brought to life by a new studio with a unique theme and visual language. The task at hand, the creation of an immersive experience that drummed up excitement and communicated the cross pollination of ideas that occurs every year at XOXO.
The Solution
Employing the metaphor of XOXO as a unique petri dish of cultural dissemination we created a color palette and hero illustration inspired by mold and bacteria. Often seen as agents of decay, OK wanted to flip this on its head and embrace microorganisms as facilitators of deconstruction and renewal. Like these microbes, ideas are spread, evolve and take on a new life of their own in this unique environment.
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Architecture for organic experiences.
Brackets and parentheses converge with strict rectangles to draw subtle parallels to the world of code and browser windows. The rigid geometry of the containers contrasts the organic fluidity of the hero illustration in a nod to the left brain, right brain intersection.
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Smashing barriers, 280 characters at a time.
XOXO obtained its cult following by creating an aggressively inclusive and safe environment for marginalized voices. It continues to serve as an essential vehicle for new ideas to bubble their way up to the surface and into the mainstream.