EMBER SESSIONS
Description
Ember Sessions lives in the tension between intellect and intimacy. A lecture series that thinks like a museum and feels like a jazz club. I built an identity that holds the weight of ideas. Typography that speaks, a palette named for the room, and applications that turn an evening into an artifact.
My Role
Brand Identity, Illustrations, Presentation Design, & Art Direction
Location
Summer 2026 - Atlanta, GA
The Ember Sessions identity is built on the cultural geography of jazz, the youthful joy of learning, and the warmth of a salon that strikes your attention as soon as you walk in. I built a system rooted in jazz heritage and editorial like intimacy: Merchis as the display voice, a supporting type stack designed for long-form thinking, and a color palette named for the rooms it lives in. The result is a system that holds the weight of a lecture and the warmth of a literary salon; equally whether at the event on a poster, a program, or a matchbook.
The Ember Sessions illustration system pulls directly from the visual language of mid-century jazz posters, off-Broadway playbills, and Atlanta's lecture-hall print traditions; the cut-paper shapes of Blue Note album covers, the flat geometry of WPA-era event posters, and the warm, hand-drawn iconography of jazz festival programs. I built a set of brand objects rather than icons; each one is a piece of the room, the elements that show up every time people gather to think out loud. Together they form visual pieces that can stand alone as standalone moments or layer into posters, social posts, and event collateral.
