I created branding and collateral for Proud to Work MN 2019, a conference addressing LGBTQ workforce equity and inclusion, presented by Mossier Social Action and Innovation Center. Mossier was looking for a visual identity for this event that would help the organization position itself as “the #1 leader on local, national and global LGBTQ employment equity.”

Deliverables: branding/type treatment, promotional graphics for social media, printed conference program, powerpoint slides

“The Great Northern Greenway is a thriving, local eco-system that connects the northern half of Minneapolis, weaving together communities across the City.”

Working with the Great Northern Greenway Task Force, I developed an identity system that aims to coalesce public support around the idea of adding the BNSF Railway bridge to an evolving greenway route, connecting historically divided parts of the city. The task force is interested in communicating the broad variety of active transportation modes that the Greenway supports and demonstrating that it is an accessible and inclusive space, which we accomplished through a set of icons of people moving in different ways.

Since the GNG is truly a grassroots effort, I recommended incorporating community insights into the design process, which the task force collected while tabling at several events. The feedback gathered from the community was used to ensure that the design resonated with the people who would be most directly served by the Greenway.

At the end of this process, I provided the Task Force with a style guide that would allow them to maintain a consistent brand voice as the project evolves.

For the Minnesota Orchestra’s 2015 Sommerfest, I was given the task of creating a campaign that celebrated the newly renovated Orchestra Hall in a way that still felt familiar to audience members who had been attending the festival for decades. As many have before me, I turned to the WPA travel posters for inspiration. The resulting illustration ended up being so popular that it was used for the 2016 and 2017 Sommerfests as well, with a refreshed color palette each year.

In 2018, the Orchestra was planning a historic tour to South Africa in honor of Nelson Mandela’s hundredth birthday. Sommerfest that year would also honor the legacy of Mandela, bringing South African musicians and composers, as well as performers from Minnesota’s many African communities, to Orchestra Hall.

The challenge: create a look that communicated the Orchestra’s respect for Mandela and for the communities that it would be engaging with for the first time, that reassured core audiences that this Sommerfest would continue in the tradition that they already knew and loved, and that could also be adapted for use on tour in South Africa, which is saturated with images of Mandela, but where the Minnesota Orchestra is almost completely unknown.

Deliverables: out-of-home campaign, building clings, brochure, large banners, signage, print and digital ads, postcards, flyers, projections for Orchestra Hall, t-shirts, bookmarks, etc.

Bike to Orchestra Hall is an incentive program designed to make the Twin Cities’ substantial biking community know that they will be welcomed with open arms at Minnesota Orchestra concerts.

This was my brainchild, but was made possible by strong collaboration within the Marketing team, leading to the purchase of two new bike racks, reorganization of the website to include multi-modal directions with a new /bike landing page including a map of nearby bike lanes and racks, a partnership with MOVE Minneapolis with a tricycle full of transit and bike safety information at Sommerfest concerts, and a sweet 50% off ticket offer for people who show their helmet or other gear at the box office.

The results: a warm reaction from the biking community and the Organization of the Year Award from Metro Transit's 2017 Commuter Choice Awards.

The Minnesota Orchestra needed a collection of images that showed instruments up close to use in its Marketing and PR materials.

I art directed a photoshoot with Travis Anderson Photo to create a new group of images that would work well alongside an existing portraiture style but would also be flexible enough for long-term use.

The resulting images highlight both the intimacy between musician and instrument and the visceral energy that goes into music making, along with the resulting scars and callouses on the instruments and their people.

The banner ads shown here feature the new images.

The Minnesota Orchestra’s Inside the Classics concert series delves into the stories behind the music with violist-host Sam Bergman and conductor Sarah Hicks. The art for these concerts was developed to give audiences a preview of the ideas that would shape the discussion during each concert.

It was important that the artwork show that the programming would be a departure from the Orchestra’s typical offerings, with wit, insight and a definite point of view. Concerts included Love in a Time of War: Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, Bartók’s Farewell: Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, Becoming Legend: Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7, and And Bach Begat….

“Emily has a unique talent for turning complicated concepts and hard-to-explain ideas into visually arresting art that draws you in and makes you want to find out more. More than just promotional art, the posters she created for our Inside the Classics series captured all the drama and humor that we hoped to bring to our performances before they were even fully scripted. She is a true collaborator, a supremely gifted designer, and an artist any organization would be lucky to work with.”
–Sam Bergman, Inside the Classics host and violist

The Minnesota Orchestra offers concerts specifically designed for young people and families.

This original artwork reflects the Orchestra’s fresh take on the children’s classics Peter and the Wolf (Prokofiev) and Carnival of the Animals (Saint-Saëns), communicating the accessibility and whimsy of the concerts.

Acara is an environmental entrepreneurship program managed by the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota. Giving emerging entrepreneurs a chance to envision and launch social ventures in the U.S. and India, Acara offers a series of courses and incubation actions to educate students and develop sustainable enterprises focused on societal and environmental change. 

This poster and brochure were designed to inform students and supporters about the opportunities and impact of Acara.

The Danish Modern: Design for Living exhibition at the Goldstein Museum of Design was a traveling show originating at the Museum of Danish America. On display in the museum's Gallery 241 in the University of Minnesota's College of Design in Spring 2014, it featured Danish furniture and other household objects from the middle of the twentieth century.

The exhibition came with a logo but promotional materials such as an invitation, poster and banner were needed for its stay in Minnesota. 

Compost Compass was my Graphic Design MFA thesis project.

This project explored a new theoretical framework called “Transition Design” that might guide graphic designers wishing to use their practice to address environmental and social challenges. To test the strengths and shortcomings of this framework, the composting of food waste was presented as a problem that might be addressed by a design-led solution following the guidelines enumerated the framework. 

Qualitative research (including responsive interviews, site visits, surveys, and community engagement activities) informed the design process. Out of this research emerged a solution called “Compost Compass”, a website-based platform that used an interactive map, discussion forum, blog, illustrations and text explaining compost, and a variety of ways for users to build community. 

If you’d like to read all 198 pages of my thesis I’d be happy to share. (Don’t worry, it’s half pictures.) Just shoot me an email! emilyjmarti@gmail.com

Say it with Snap: Motivating Workers by Design, 1923-1929 is a traveling exhibition that visited the Goldstein Museum of Design in Fall 2013. It featured lithographic posters designed to inspire workers to be diligent and well behaved.

The promotional materials for its time at the GMD were inspired by a poster in the exhibition.

"Designing the Beautifully Useful" was a panel discussion on Scandinavian Modern design hosted by the Goldstein Museum of Design in April 2014  in conjunction with the exhibition "Danish Modern Design for Living". 

The design of this poster and digital display was also reflected on the museum's website and on social media. 

In the Fall of 2013, I worked with the staff of the Goldstein Museum of Design to update the look of their magazine (published three times a year) so that it would reinforce the museum's identity. As the project manager, editor, graphic designer and sometimes even writer and photographer for this magazine, I gained an intimate understanding of what it takes to create a publication of this kind. 

During my tenure at the museum I will have produced four issues of the magazine. 

This project explores a potential avenue for pursuing sustainability through graphic design. By screen printing on segments of used cereal and soda boxes and turning them into note cards on which one might write a letter to a loved one, a second life is given to an otherwise banal and ubiquitous piece of ephemera. While "Reuse" is not at the top of the solid waste management hierarchy (the place held by "Reduce") it is preferable to immediately recycling materials once we are through with them.

By superimposing an abstract pattern over existing graphic design intended to sell food products to consumers, this project offers an alternative perspective on the products we consume and how we might treat the packaging that contains them.

The End of the World and Tales from Jackson Bridge are the third and fourth albums by the whiz-bang classically-trained Americana band Harpeth Rising. 

The 2013 issue of T/HERE Journal of Design, a project of the UMN Architecture and Landscape Architecture graduate students, was based on the topic of "Fear". As co-creative director and graphic designer, I sought to explore this topic visually as it related to the content of the articles.

Co-creative director and photographer: Marit McCluske

This e-vite and a similar printed poster announced a presentation through the Housing Studies program at the University of Minnesota about the effort to open the construction industry to women. 

Some new motion graphics tricks are in the works.