For years, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art hosted an indoor art and gift fair during the holiday season. This popular event stretched throughout the museum and into the neighboring performing arts complex. During the pandemic shutdowns, the event was put on hold and never really brought back to its former scale.
In 2024, the decision was made to relaunch the event as Art Market. This art and craft fair was scheduled to slot between changing exhibitions and take advantage of large empty gallery space.
Without the context of a holiday shopping experience, the event needed a new identity. Taking inspiration from the “market” part of Art Market, I created an identity reminiscent of plastic grocery bags.
The imagery was strong graphically, and fit within the museum’s larger identity, but it lacked depth, and its allusion to the market was more subtle than I wanted.
With the return of the event in 2025, I wanted to bring in new elements to reinforce the commerce aspect of Art Market, while also pushing the handmade and local side of the event and I found inspiration at my local grocery store.
I shared these photos with the museum’s new Graphic Designer, and they took the inspiration and ran with it. Drawing on handmade signage, they created a custom typeface and palette and developed a playful identity that was translated to print ads, social media posts, postcards, and more. The Digital Content Coordinator expanded the design to include motion graphics, complete with line boil.
The final design was also printed as a series of large-format posters that were hung on the windows on the exterior of the museum. This grabbed the attention of passersby during the busy Saturday morning as pedestrians moved from the university campus to the Farmers’ Market on the Capitol Square.
The refreshed design was fun and well received by the public, but it also led to a significant increase in artist applications and event attendance. In 2025, Art Market saw an 85% increase in attendance compared to the previous year, and participating vendors reported larger average sales.
