Portal Bound

Portal Bound is a digital festival experience in outer space. Centering around a website, participants can learn about the unique planetary system of Xavios-9QC and watch the festival right from home.

My role: Creative & Art Director

Designed a brand identity
Illustrated scenery and a comic to create backstory to the event
Animated high-fidelity mock ups of the website experience
Researched into existing event hosting platforms and experience design
surveyed over 100 music event enthusiasts about the importance and lack thereof for music events during COVID-19 shut downs.

The Objective:

The purpose was to produce an online event for artists and festival/rave enthusiasts to enjoy music digitally and promote a community during the post pandemic era.

Opportunity Space

The Problem

Over the course of a couple of months, music festivals have either been canceled, postponed or been changed to being an online live stream instead. Festival-goes are anxious to party again. Festival and music events faced major hit from covid 19 travel restrictions and while online is an option, the experience of going to such events, dancing, mingling cannot simply be replicated by a regular online experience. To add on top of that, the entertainment industry is facing big hits to loss of income, especially bands, venues, organizations, and those workers who depend on them.

Thesis

Instead of a real-life event, I will design an all-encompassing experience, where ravers can interact and listen to music live and safely at home. With an emphasis on the story and journey into the portal, I can design and draw a unique digital world for ravers to experience. The experience will be available on the Portal Bound website with visuals to support the experience.

Mindmap

Deliverables

Environment illustrations
Universe discovery page
Lineup poster
Event Livestream
About page

Expected Users

Youth and young adults, age 18-30
People who listen to EDM music
People who attend raves, festivals, concerts, parties

research

Competition

During the pandemic, there were three large events that were popularly attended. A consistent theme I found was the number of acts performing and the bright neon visuals surrounding the hosting sites.

Survey

I created a questionnaire to find out how people were affected during the pandemic regarding festivals, raves, concerts, and events and why these events were important to them. Through my findings, I found the highest motivator to go to events were the people/friends, music, atmosphere and the escape. I also confirmed the need for online events.

“It’s like a ‘vacation’. People always say, you really don’t know how it is until you experience it and I stand by that whole-heartedly.”

research

In my research phase, I looked at competition and conducted my own survey in search of reasons for these events and what the goals were. Weighing the expectations and pros and cons of other online events would allow me to understand the core fundamentals to create a successful online festival.

Competition

Survey

“It’s like a ‘vacation’. People always say, you really don’t know how it is until you experience it and I stand by that whole-heartedly.”

visual identity

The Story

There are 5 exoplanets in the faraway planetary system of Xavios-9QC. Recent trips to Xavios have proven that survival on all these planets exists with the proof of inhabitants by the cosmos. As a celebration of the friendship earthlings and cosmos have, every year we come together during the festival called Portal Bound. Festival go-ers can travel between the planets and experience different rave environments.

Inspiration

With my previous poster designs from first term, during the planning phase, I relied on these visuals and styles to base the new website around. I also got inspired from other festival posters and photographs from such events.

Inspiration

Colors and Fonts

Because of the various illustrations, I will be using, I kept a basic format of some neon colors, with black and purple being dominating tones. Futuristic, blocky fonts were chosen due in relation to code-like sequences used in computers in Sci-fi films to relay that otherworldly feeling.

Colors and Fonts

Logo

Initially I wanted the event to take place on one planet and started with a 3D made planet, but as my plans changed for the universe, the logo needed to change. Since adding multiple planets with different colors, the common connection was spaceship transportation so I designed a logo that incorporated a loop with a spaceship surrounding the title like it’s circling the planets. I tried different gradients and colors but I realized the simpler the better to contrast against the colorful site and posters.

Logo

Inhabitants

The cosmos were the inhabitants I designed for the world of Portal Bound. I didn’t want the character to come off as frightening or cold, so along with feedback from my peers, I decided on one of the designs.

Inhabitants

research

Poster

The first thing I finished in the creation of the event was the poster. I decided to use the colors and wavy illustrations so all other parts, the website and comic, became representative of the poster.

Assets

I explored using 3D software such as Modo and Cinema 4D to create elements of the event to build realism and believability. Ultimately I was only able to create a handful of planets to use, due to my inexperience with 3D softwares and the time constraint I was under. Instead, I focused on my skills of illustrating for visualizing the event.

Site Wireframes

Comic

The comic is meant to be an introduction to set up the narrative to build investment on the event and elevate the event page experience.

final outcome

Change of Plans

Initially, I had planned to add in a social media aspect, chat rooms, a promotional video, live performances and merchandise , however I eventually synthesized the project into just the specific areas. I realized that I wanted to do too many things and at that capacity, it would just take away from the experience if I spread myself too thin. Therefore, while I researched into areas such as event planning and world building, It should be noted that I altered the expectations and used my knowledge to further only the Portal Bound website instead.

Comic

I decided to move away from the traditional style of comics or manga, and instead opted to illustrate each scene more in detail, and as a scroll down. Each scene I detailed, and the story talks about Portal Bound’s origins, then invites the viewer to press go to enter the site.

The Tabloids

The poster design is meant to convey the image of an alternate universe, The colorful upper half creates a portal effect, and features planets and spacecrafts in that direction. At the bottom is a QR code to access the website if being viewed as a physical poster or online.

The Complete Experience

The website was put together using the assets and drawings, as mentioned before. Throughout the sites, the colors purple, blue, and pink created a space-like look to it. I used the colorful blobs as detailing for the sides of the site so that it connects back to the poster design. The illustrations throughout were taken from the comic, and some icons appear for better visual understanding to the viewer. I then also added an Earth at the bottom of each tab to convey the journey from earth into space.

Each video is a part of the website experience. To view properly, view from top to down, left to right, or click on the button to see for yourself.