About the Strawberry Music Festival

The Strawberry Music Festival is a multi-day, family-friendly campout with live music, activities, and entertainment for everyone. It dates back to 1982 and primarily caters to lovers of bluegrass, folk, and country music.

Class assignment

I completed this logo design as part of one of my graphic design classes at Santa Clara University. We were instructed to create a complete direct mail kit for a concert, festival, convention, or other large gathering. This logo is just one component of the direct mail kit, but it was expected to visually tie each element of the kit together.

Since a few of my friends at the time attended Strawberry whenever they had the chance, I chose that for my subject. I challenged myself to find a way to incorporate a strawberry into the text of the logo. The strawberry graphic should also be able to stand alone as well, and be recognizable on its own.

Developing the logo

I started by looking for fonts that captured the laid-back, friendly, down-to-earth mood of the festival. After looking at several options, I chose one that looks handwritten to evoke a casual and approachable feel.

Replacing the “a” in “strawberry” with the strawberry graphic was the most logical choice. I chose to keep the shapes as simple as possible, reducing the berry itself to its silhouette and using color more than shape to distinguish the leaves. This kept the clean, flat colors consistent through the logo, so that the berry graphic doesn’t feel out of place.

What I would do differently now

Honestly, I’m pretty happy with this one. The berry works on its own for square or circular canvases, and I feel like the logo is visually cohesive. I might add “music festival” the way I did in the letterhead below the “strawberry” of the main logo to keep the brand identity complete.

Another option might be to add a few strawberry seeds; I’d keep them subtle and sparse to avoid visual clutter. It’s visually a strawberry, but in real life the berries have much more visual texture and I think I could capture that more effectively.

Other pieces of the direct mail kit

I also developed letterhead with a tear-off ticket stub, a t-shirt, and a box to mail everything in. I chose a deep brown for the background color, created a swirl motif and a pattern similar to strawberry seeds. My instructor provided us templates for each piece; Pantone guide lines defined our bleed, trim, safe areas, folds, and perforations.