Color Harmony: Packaging

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Thinking Creatively Conference

The Design Studio at Kean University

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Each year, the Art Directors

Club of New Jersey and Kean

University host the Thinking

Creatively Conference,

an event geared toward graphic designers with the purpose of

encouraging innovation, experimentation, and creative thinking in

the working environment, and in life. Steven Brower, art director of

the Design Studio at Kean University, identifi ed his goal as being, “to

educate and elevate. And to have a good time.” Being the only event

of this nature in New Jersey, the audience of creative professionals,

educators, and students, always fi nds it an enlightening experience

to interact with leading speakers from the design industry.

Brower and his team design and oversee all materials for the conference.

These materials include: invitations, posters, postcards, event booklets,

bags, pens, T-shirts, event signage, advertisements, and Web, and

on-screen graphics. To promote the event, posters, postcards, and

programs are sent to various schools, institutions, corporations, design

fi rms, and individual attendees. The posters, pins, pens, and bags are

giveaways at the event.

In 2004, the fi rst year of the conference, Brower designed a poster for

his keynote speech that was inspired by a Dadaist game he played as

a child with his father and sister. In this game, several people contribute

to a drawing or sentence without any knowledge of what the previous

contributor has done. The name of this creative exercise, The Exquisite

Corpse, is derived from the fi rst sentence that was created in this

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56

Design for Special Events

way: “The-exquisite-corpse-will-drink-new-wine.” For the poster,

Brower collaborated with Milton Glaser, Mirko Ilic, and Luba Lukova,

each of whom contributed one panel of the drawing. The resulting

image—Groucho Marx with angel wings on a farm and drawing in his

own right foot—perfectly captures the spirit of this conference. The

idea is to think in a completely new way, to create as though there

is no beginning or end. As a design for the inaugural conference,

Brower sent a clear message that this was an event unlike any other.

In each of the following four years, Brower followed up his Exquisite

Corpse poster with equally interesting and thought-provoking

designs. In 2005, he used a lightbulb, a symbol for revelation, to

illustrate the idea that blood, sweat, tears, and creative thinking are

all necessary parts for uncovering a great idea. The following year,

he used a simple illustration of a pen and a multicolored octopus to

illustrate the simplicity of thinking differently.

In 2007, inspired by popular packaging, he took a typographic

approach, combining some letters and using others in different

directions, in eye-catching colors and a design so complex you

need to see it more than once to catch the subtlety of its cleverness.

Through the fi rst four years of the conference, Brower came up with

entirely new ideas, but for the upcoming fi fth year, he intends to

incorporate some of this earlier work into the design.

Each year, Steven Brower designed an entirely new look and feel for

the Thinking Creatively Conference, attempting to create something

unexpected, interesting, and out-of-the-ordinary. He designed pieces

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that embody the core philosophy of the conference itself. They are

so unusual that he claims that these designs are usually met with

either an “ah!” or a “huh?” This conference is about cultivating

experimentation, risk taking, and inventiveness amongst creatives.

Though he may leave a few confused, Brower consistently produces

pieces that are fresh, interesting, and truly embody the message of

the Thinking Creatively Conference.

57

Case Study: Thinking Creatively

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