V1 Michigan is the premier startup club on the University of Michigan's Ann Arbor campus. The community is centered around supporting hackers, creators, and designers throughout their building journey, especially those who build scrappily and are avid risk-takers.
our goals include
1. Attracting builders who don't know the alternatives: the vast majority of builders, especially those in tech, don't know that there is a non-traditional path, one that doesn't bring them into the corporate world. Making striking material that draws in these people is important so that we can give them a taste of V1 mentorship.
2. Being scrappy, rebellious, and risk-forward: Our visuals also have to encompass the scrappiness of building, not the prim-and-perfect, professional side.
primary challenge:
Our audience ranges from younger students seeking mentorship to older students looking for advice from founders, and every builder in between. With numerous other clubs on campus that help people find the corporate, professional route, we need to visually communicate the alternative path that we provide; the one focused on building and shipping over professionalism. As a designer for the club, my job is to visually represent our core values while keeping the serious and energetic vibe that keeps people interested and action-oriented.
designing for the goals
fonts:
Inter: clean and modern for readability
Inconsolata: monospace, a nod to technology, our primary audience
Gravity Text: text is in filled boxes, stacked one on top of another in a falling style. A drop shadow creates the illusion of a text stack
typeface: Inter
typeface: Inconsolata
gravity text
color palette:
Greyscale: maintains our existing brand identity, where greys especially create a newspaper effect, a more scrappy look akin to zines
Bursts of color: help highlight important information on the screen
visuals:
Paper texture & halftones:
Contributes to the scrappy look; rough, gritty imperfection is a constant for both our visuals and for V1 build culture.
Hands:
V1 is always doing something, with an emphasis on hands-on projects and doing rather than saying you're doing something. Hands holding microphones, projects, etc. insinuate action and creating.
Candids:
Candid captures of people speaking, building and presenting capture the club in its natural habitat.
Irregular stars:
Used to draw attention to things; creates an exciting "burst" of energy used to highlight elements, and creates moments of disruption across designs.
gallery
