Poly-Kroma 2025
Marketing - Gallery- Management Position
Every year, the Art Department at Cal Poly Pomona hosts a student exhibition and student portfolio showcase called Poly-Kroma (PK). Every year, there is a redesign and a process of creating new marketing materials to go on and off campus and online. Being a part of the PK team also involved installing the show and managing participants in both the exhibit and the senior showcase.
Event Goals
Design and apply a new brand that would represent and celebrate the art department
Create marketing materials
Set up the gallery for the student show and senior showcase
Have alumni and industry professionals come to the shows
Celebrate the success of upcoming visual communication designers and the work produced at the department
Co-Lead Responsibilities
Organize separate teams to get marketing materials and assets collected
Maintain brand standards across all media
Ensure all work is complete by the deadline of the show
Quality and accuracy control for work being produced and distributed
Invite alumni and design studios to attend
Brand Guidelines
The 2025 brand was based on a poster designed by Quyen Vu Huynh and Nicholas Do. These two designers in addition to Kelsey Duong and myself became the co-leads and editors in chief for PK2025.
As a co-lead, I was in charge of enforcing the brand guidelines and elements as decided by Quyen and Nicholas. This included providing a visual like the one above on how to manipulate the pattern created by Quyen while staying within the brand’s parameters.
“Whiteboard” was used as a tool to collect work and receive feedback by all the co-leads. Through this process, they created a system to verify work that did not previously exist in the PK system.
Once all media was collected, it was also my responsibility to enforce a naming convention amongst the files. This made it easy for other designers, the printers, and the social media team to locate and use these files when needed in the future.
Making the Deadline
For all work to be completed on time, I was also responsible for keeping track of all of the marketing material that PK 2025 needed. This process involved creating a spreadsheet that did not previously exist in the PK resources. It also created a system to regularly check and keep track of the completion status of different materials.
Once the installation process and senior showcase started to approach, I created a more adaptive and responsive spreadsheet. This spreadsheet allowed the original design team to switch gears into other teams. Weekly check ins, deadline expectations, and memos were conducted through this system.
Design
The entire PK2025 team participated in a selection process for the new branding. Each member, including myself, designed a poster as a concept for the new brand.
In addition to being a co-lead, I also acted as a designer for the marketing team. These are some examples of which materials were designed and produced by me as an individual.
Nicholas Do and I became responsible for quality and accuracy checking all the marketing materials once they were complete. At their initial creation, final dates and times for each event were not finalized. This correction process became essential once these details became official.
Planning for Success
I conducted an inquiry from my peers and fellow graduating seniors of studios they hope would visit on the day of the showcase. I then collected the details for each of these studios and attempted to visit every single one to personally invite them to the show. I was luckily successful in this venture and was able to invite ten different local studios. This will hopefully reignite the pre-Covid tradition of personally inviting studios to visit the shows.
The co-leads and I also attended networking events to continue to spread the word of the shows. Such an event was hosted by AIGALA at Outreach where the co-leads were able to personally invite and hand postcards to board members, studio designers, and graduating designers from other schools.
Install
The entire PK25 team participated in installing the artwork and kiosks for the exhibition. This was a collaborative effort between the PK team, gallery staff, and graduating seniors to complete the show installation during a swift time period.
Events
The senior showcase was a great success with over 40 alumni and studios attending. This gave the graduating seniors ample opportunity to both network and obtain feedback about their work from industry professionals.
The student exhibition and motion festival was also a great success. Several students were honored and awarded for their work at this event.
Conclusion & Outcomes
All of this was made possible by all of the PK team. This was a huge joint effort, and it was wonderful working with such a diverse team of talent and skills. I’ve learned a lot about what it takes to organize an event at this scale and how organized the team has to be in order for everything to run smoothly. This opportunity really expanded my communication skills, design capabilities, time management, and hands on skills.
In regards to the outcomes of working on this team, I can proudly say my spreadsheets and organization systems allowed the marketing materials to be completed about 2 weeks earlier compared to previous years. The application process to submit work into the show was streamlined with the addition of my input and experience. Lastly, some empathy and interpersonal skills allowed seniors to install their portfolios at more inclusive hours. I hope my contributions to the team help the following year’s show become even better!
References for this project can be provided upon request!