PANDA FEST
Building a Scalable Festival Brand System
Brand direction, campaign systems, merchandise development, and AI-assisted product visualization.
DESIGN LEAD · 2025–PRESENT · BRAND / CAMPAIGN / PRODUCT
01 / CONTEXT
A Festival Brand Built to Scale Across Cities
Panda Fest is a traveling U.S. festival series combining food, performances, vendors, and character-driven merchandise. Its design system must remain consistent while dates, locations, schedules, and local content change across cities.
THE CHALLENGE
Maintain a recognizable national identity while adapting each event to local information and production needs.
MY RESPONSIBILITY
I lead brand, social campaign, and merchandise workflows within a six-person multidisciplinary design team.
BOUNDARY
Site planning and event-map ownership are managed by the spatial design team.
02 / BRAND SYSTEM
Turning an Existing Mark into a Usable Brand System
The original Panda Fest logo was created externally. I refined its structure and production readiness, then built the complete brand guide—including logo variants, color, typography, and usage standards—to support consistent execution across cities, teams, and formats.
MY CONTRIBUTION
Logo refinement · Brand color system · Typography hierarchy · Usage standards · Complete brand guide
INHERITED MARK
Externally created logo before refinement
REFINED SYSTEM
Production-ready variants and usage standards
REFINEMENT DETAILS
01 Geometry & alignment / 02 Spacing & proportions / 03 Responsive variants
Refined the inherited wordmark through optical spacing, smoother letterform curves, more consistent counters, and better-balanced proportions.
BRAND GUIDE
Complete standards for cross-team execution
COLOR & TYPE
Palette and hierarchy for repeatable use
BRAND IN THE ENVIRONMENT
From visual standards to a large-scale physical experience
03 / FESTIVAL CAMPAIGN SYSTEM
Designing for Accuracy at Scale
Across recurring city campaigns, the design team translated changing event information into audience-facing assets—including FAQs, vendor directories, schedules, ticket information, and social announcements. As Design Lead, I established hierarchy and review standards, assigned production work, and approved final files for release.
20+
U.S. festivals scheduled in 2026
UP TO 15
Recurring campaign asset categories
DENVER CAMPAIGN / 2026
One Event, Multiple Information Systems
A modular visual framework adapted across different content types, information densities, and publishing formats.
EVENT INFORMATION SYSTEM
SOCIAL MAP / FAQ CAROUSEL / VENDOR DIRECTORY / PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
LIVE CAMPAIGN DEPLOYMENT
Published through the event’s social channel.
DESIGN REVIEW CRITERIA
Turning visual judgment into repeatable standards.
01 / INFORMATION HIERARCHY
Structured each asset so visitors could identify the primary question, direct answer, and supporting details in sequence.
02 / CONTENT ACCURACY
Reviewed names, booth numbers, dates, schedules, and local time information against approved source files before release.
03 / FORMAT ADAPTATION
Reorganized layouts for different content densities and publishing formats rather than simply resizing the original artwork.
Role: Design direction, information hierarchy standards, task assignment, design review, and final approval.
Production: Created collaboratively with the Panda Fest design team.
04 / MERCHANDISE DEVELOPMENT
Turning Character IP into Production-Ready Merchandise
Extending the Panda Fest brand into physical products required balancing character fidelity, material constraints, manufacturing feasibility, and packaging accuracy. I led design direction, sample evaluation, and packaging standards across multiple merchandise categories, coordinating the process from concept development through final approval.
ROLE
Product design, design direction, sample review, packaging standards, and final approval.
SCALE
12+ merchandise SKUs
01 / PRODUCT ECOSYSTEM
One Character System, Multiple Product Formats
The merchandise line extended the Panda Fest identity across plush, keychains, magnets, pins, and packaging while maintaining consistent character proportions, color, and tone.
PLUSH · KEYCHAINS · MAGNETS · PINS · PACKAGING
02 / FEATURED DEVELOPMENT CASE
Plush Development
A focused review process compared design intent with factory samples, refining character proportions, facial expression, material behavior, and construction before final approval.
DESIGN INTENT · INITIAL SAMPLE · REVIEW & REVISION
03 / PACKAGING & SAMPLE REVIEW
One Repeatable Approval Framework
A standardized packaging system maintained consistent branding and product information across multiple SKUs while allowing dimensions, materials, and compliance details to change.
Samples were evaluated against five repeatable criteria before production approval.
BRAND FIDELITY · MATERIAL & COLOR · PROPORTION & CONSTRUCTION · PACKAGING ACCURACY · PRODUCTION READINESS
05 / AI-ASSISTED PLUSH WORKFLOW
Plush Toys - Using AI as a Controlled Visualization Step
To visualize a plush concept before physical sampling, I combined sketching, Blender blockout, reference-guided AI rendering, and Photoshop correction. Each stage served a defined purpose: the 3D model established structure, AI explored material appearance, and final corrections restored product and brand accuracy.
CONTROLLED VISUALIZATION PIPELINE
01 / SKETCH
Defines the concept, composition, and key character features.
02 / BLENDER BLOCKOUT
Locks the silhouette, proportions, camera, and spatial relationships.
03 / AI-ASSISTED VISUALIZATION
Explores soft-material appearance while preserving the controlled structure.
04 / DESIGNER CORRECTION
The AI-assisted render provided a useful material preview, then I refined the details, product hardware, branded strap, color, texture, and overall presentation in Photoshop before final output.
06 / ROLE & COLLABORATION
Leading Within a Multidisciplinary Team
I lead brand, social campaign, and merchandise workflows within a six-person multidisciplinary design team. My responsibilities include creative direction, task allocation, design review, final approval, upstream asset coordination, downstream production handoff, plush development, and production quality review.
I collaborate with illustrators, product and packaging designers, and spatial designers to move work from concept through public release and production. Site planning and event-map ownership sit outside my direct management scope.
SELECTED COLLABORATOR CREDITS
Creative direction, branding design, systems, design review, and final approval — Zhuoyuan (Lejoy) Li
Campaign production and format adaptations — Panda Fest Design Team
Illustration — Esme Lei
Product and packaging development — Fiona Cao & Carol Funke
Spatial design and event maps — Jetta Lin