Designing for an event is a great way to practice and expand your design skills. Events require many design pieces including, tickers, posters, flyers, social media promotions, and more. Design work can also include apparel such as hats, t-shirts, wristbands, and passes. Each of these designs has a different purpose which requires different layouts and content but must remain cohesive with the branding to tie it all together. This past week, I tackled an event design project for the Belmont Stakes, a horse race in Elmont, New York. The Belmont is the third and final race in the triple crown, after the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes. If a horse wins first in all three races, it will be a rare triple crown winner. 

To start off the designs, I began with the event poster. The purpose of this poorer is to draw attention to the event and provide some general information about the event including, the date, time, location, ticket information, and phone number. The poster uses their colors in their branding, which I used across all the board to create cohesive designs. 

Next, I made the event flyer. While similar to a poster, an event flyer provides more detailed information. Here, I included more detailed ticket information, as well as the benefits provided for those who purchase tickets to the diamond room or clubhouse. These experiences are big-ticket items for the Belmont and promoting those is important for the race. 

For this event, I also created VIP invitations. The Belmont Stakes has been around since 1867, so it is quite established and has members that tend the race yearly, as well as families that have attended for generations. For these people, they do not need information about what the Belmont is, so I included the things that change such as the date and times. I also added the accommodations od the diamond room and clubhouse to remind them what they are paying for, as well as the address and contact information for those who need it. 

As for apparel, I wanted to create something a little classier than just a regular t-shirt, so I created a lightweight long sleeve sweatshirt with the logo and a vector drawing I created in Illustrator, Procreate, and Photoshop. While this might not be something that more wealthy attendees might purchase, such as the VIP members, this would be appealing to those who might not attend regularly as a memento or keepsake for the event. 

Moving on to the social media promotional content, I created this banner for the Facebook page, as well as a post promoting the event. These two pieces would not be the only Facebook content but are a start to introducing the 2022 race. A social media strategy can be created and put in place to guide content, such as introducing the horses and jockeys in posts, as well as more detailed information about the event and past photos. 

Lastly, for Instagram, I created these three posts to introduce the event. Again, a social media strategy would be created to guide the creation of content for this platform, but these posts are a start to introduce the page.