Tour X
Tour X was one of solo artist Amber Liu’s 2020 concert tours. Tour related assets including the main promotional website’s UI, advertising, and images were designed and deployed through various social media platforms.
The Challenges & Insights
What people are attending Amber's first Tour
and what does her music mean for herself?
About
Since this was Amber’s first solo tour after leaving the Korean Pop industry, I set up a brief set of questions for her manager to relay to them to better understand the image for this tour. Some of them included:
- ‘How was her identity as a solo artist different than her identity as a former K-Pop idol?’
- ‘As Korean idols have their own fanbases that develop naturally, were there certain things they had associated already with Amber that I may not know of?’
After having a discussion with the project manager and verifying with Amber themself, I was able to narrow down what items I needed to tackle for the project and where my key points needed to focus on.
Key Points
1. I focused on a visual identity that began with Amber’s baseline of the blue “X” used as a motif throughout the entire album and it’s additional assets. This was a fixed motif with color and how much of it could cover specific parts of the picture were specified.
2. The difference in visual language oversees meant that there were different guidelines as to what was permitted between Chinese, Korean, and English media formats.
Sketches and Process
What kind of person is going to come visit Amber’s website
and what are they going to need to do?
After being given a few different websites to look at for solo artists as inspiration, the base of the wireframe came about. Using a couple of the images that Amber pointed out to liking, as well as the notable usage of periwinkle throughout the entire branding, I was able to create a solid theme and color palette.
Since Amber’s website was mainly used as a place to reference their press as well as buy her tickets, I targeted two key demographics from this: K-Pop fans & Press. For this reason, the navigation was set up in such a way to work successfully for both types of users to navigate towards.
After the wireframe, it was critical for me to lay out how all of the images would lay out to get a gauge of how long the website was going to be on top of all of what the developer should have expected and get their approval before going ahead with the color and stylistic choices. As the website gained approval, the assets deliverables such as banners, flyers, tickets, and badges all manifested within a couple weeks after before print approval.
Final Product (Hi-Fi’s)
A showcase of the deliverables made throughout the duration
of the tour both physical and digital, as well as a few extra bonuses of the concert in Chicago!
Final Thoughts
“So much has happened. Some good.
Some bad. I wanna be me again.” – Amber Liu
The timeline of this project was small so time passed for it quickly. The difficulties lay mainly in maintaining a solid brand identity throughout each platform since all forms of social media had their own user base that interacted with it in different ways. I made sure that communication was streamlined with my developer, manager, and Amber so that we were connected and on the same page through each step of the process. Beyond the technical details, there’s something surreal about seeing work that you’ve done in person during an event. Seeing all of the people involved with making the tour come to life, from the dancers and photographers, to the sound technicians and so many others, come together to in one place truly makes the experience special.
Working with an artist means that you understand their vision, and how they want to better convey that into different formats for their fans. Amber was a joy to work with through this entire process and taught me how strong her vision was and how she wanted it to be expressed through the tour.
