2022: My AEJMC Logo Design Concept (Washington, D.C. Edition)

Every year, an organization called “The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication” (or “AEJMC”), holds an annual conference in a particular host city. In August 2023, they held their conference in Washington, D.C. And during my senior year of college, my graphic design class had an assignment where we had to design a logo for said conference, since every year the organization also holds a special competition where students all around the world could submit logo design ideas under the sponsorship of their respective instructor and university. This was my submission. Before coming up with my design I chose to do some research into what designs were chosen in the past, more specifically for the previous times when the conference was held in D.C. To observe what style they typically go for and if there is any pattern in what they prefer. Because if something works, why change it? I ultimately noticed that almost all of the past logo designs featured the Capitol building. So, in turn I used it as the primary basis for my design. Not only that, but I also took the liberty of whipping up a few more rough logo ideas and test them all out with friends and classmates to see which of them they found more visually appealing, and ultimately, the final design proved to be the favorite. The final design features a silhouetted capitol building standing tall in the middle with the AEJMC initials standing below it, along with the big, bold, and blocky font choice acting almost like an extension of the landmark. Not only that, but I also decided to add a line of stars forming an arch over the capitol building to give the logo a more circular appearance. The number of stars used was also not random. I decided to place 8 stars on either side as a subtle reference to the 8 previous times the conference was held in D.C. And finally, I added some black lines streaking behind the capitol dome in order to fill in some of the negative space and further add a sense of uniformity to the whole design by connecting the stars to each other. The streaks themselves could also represent a number of things like the lines of the US Flag, to written lines of legislative text. All of it coming together to make a nicely symmetrical and orderly logo design. The design itself was made entirely in Adobe Illustrator.