Brand development, website design, social media marketing and animation for a virtual non-profit fundraiser

BOOKED FOR THE EVENING — LITERACY BUFFALO NIAGARA

Literacy Buffalo Niagara is a local non-profit that provides free adult literacy and ESL tutoring to the region. OtherWisz has worked with LBN consistently over the years, including the design and development of event branding for the organization’s annual fundraisers. The 2020 event, Booked for the Evening, was forced to go digital this year to accommodate social distancing guidelines. As a result, our team created a plan to make a strong impression and generate interest in the event without the usual draw of dinner and drinks.

The event logo is layered in meaning

From the start of the concept phase, we explored logo designs for Booked for the Evening that would allude to the virtual nature of the event. The logo is comprised of a book held within a chat bubble shape, combining a physical aspect of literacy with a recognizable symbol of digital communication. A key detail of the logo is the red bookmark, which simultaneously represents marking your place in a book, saving a web page online, and declaring your interest in LBN’s event. By participating, your time is “booked” or dedicated to literacy for the night.

Branding for the evolution of a long-standing event

While designing this campaign, it was important to harmonize the event visuals with the current LBN brand, which utilizes bright, welcoming colors and digital illustrations. Booked for the Evening is a natural extension of the main brand, as well as an evolution of their past event marketing. This drew us to a mostly illustrative approach for the Booked visuals, falling in line with their existing imagery; the brand incorporates event details into custom-designed badges, icons, and other graphic components that can be mixed and matched for a fun yet informative aesthetic. The main color palette we developed for the event consists of eye-popping blue and red (supported by lighter shades of both colors), which takes advantage of the vibrant RGB display of screens.

Four digital posters, illustrated by OtherWisz Creative Designers. Each poster features a different message and interior scene, which imagines where the viewer might book themselves for the evening.

An event website to organize and share important details

The Booked website (www.BookedForTheEvening.org) is the main hub for all content relating to the event that is easy to update information as needed. Although OtherWisz has developed LBN’s various fundraiser campaigns throughout the years, the event website was a new addition to our event marketing package. Since this year’s event is exclusively digital, Literacy Buffalo Niagara needed to direct viewers to a website that has all of the necessary information a potential attendee would need to know, in lieu of traditional printed posters and invitations.

Two open windows of the Booked for the Evening website, including all important images, which is supported by colorful illustrations

We designed the website as a dynamic single page with highlighted sections, allowing people to quickly locate event details. The website provides step-by-step instructions on how to participate in the virtual experience and purchase tickets. Interactive graphics and sponsors are given their own sections to cross promote LBN supporters and provide viewers with other ways to promote Booked for the Evening on social media. Having a website for the annual fundraiser adds weight to the mission of LBN, legitimizing the event for passive viewers trying to support the organization.

on the Booked for the Evening website illustrations help guide viewers to understand the protocols of the booked event.

Interactive assets promote the event while engaging viewers

As part of the Booked campaign, we created a set of interactive social media assets, including Facebook profile and story frames, animated GIF stickers for social stories, and several Zoom backgrounds (both still and animated). These interactive elements help viewers feel like they are part of the event despite the lack of physical gathering, while also increasing its visibility by sharing branded materials to a wider network. For example, the library of GIF stickers we developed features looping animations that can be easily added to social media stories and other posts, encouraging user-generated promotional content.

Interactive digital assets were created to integrate into the social media strategy for literacy buffalo

Prepared content helps the client get involved

In addition to the interactive assets, we designed a package of graphics meant for LBN to share on their own social media accounts, allowing them to take ownership of the event marketing while keeping the brand visuals cohesive. An event announcement animation was created to promote Booked and help LBN draw interest on social media; incorporating video into your social media can often increase engagement and draw the viewer’s attention.

A set of sponsor graphic templates sized for various uses allows us to easily add a sponsor logo to the design, resulting in a shareable image that shows LBN’s appreciation of their supporters. Four custom-illustrated digital posters feature examples of reading spaces paired with crafted headlines that ask people to support literacy while attending the event at home. Our team also designed graphics that encourage the viewer to interact by sharing photos with the tag #BookedForTheEvening.

sponsor graphics were created for literacy buffalo to use on social media

Services

Logo Design
Brand Development
Website Design

Social Media Marketing
Animation
Illustration

zoom backgrounds were created using the available graphics for the final booked for the evening event

two animated sticker graphics are used to demonstrate the library of gifs created for the event

This animation features a laptop, book and coffee sliding into the frame

A lava lamp and stack of books are animated alongside a save the date graphic

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