Making Midwest

Making Midwest is a community project initiated by Made By Things to support creative artists in the Midwest region of the United States.

The Overview

We aim to provide inspiration and education to this creative community. Our goal is to provide a platform for artists to receive education and inspiration from professionals and peers within the creative industry.

We have organized numerous in-person events in the past nine years and built an incredible community. Due to the pandemic, we temporarily suspended our in-person events but have been searching for the appropriate time to resume them. 2024 was our year to bring back Making Midwest in-person events.

Presenters Included

Sarah Beth Morgan
Erica Gorochow
Handel Eugene
Rafael Mayani
Amanda Russell
Kevin Rapp
Mack Garrison
Matt Vojacek

Branding

For the event branding, we wanted something similar to the cutout style and color palette established for the 2017 event. The idea behind using red within our color palette was to represent getting back to the heart of Making Midwest. Once we finalized the branding for the conference, then we worked on the following:

77+ Social media graphics and templates.
2-3 Outreach materials for sponsors, presenters, and volunteers.
1 Opening video, which included our opening credits for the event.
Event badges w/ stickers
Event program
1 Presentation deck to be displayed in the auditorium before each presentation.
T-shirt graphics w/ 2 colorways

The Results

Our team orchestrated Making Midwest at Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD) from May 17 to 19, attracting 124 attendees. Making Midwest provided a space for like-minded individuals within the motion graphics community to have authentic conversations and foster new or old connections. The conference included seven keynote presentations, two panels, one demo reel review, two morning workshops, and ample breaks between activities to allow the community to connect in the lobby or grab a bite to eat in the area. Our team and presenters were thrilled by the audience engagement, especially the Q&As that opened up at the end of each presentation.

I came to Making Midwest with one simple thought. Make connections. The event exceeded those expectations in the best of ways! I had been following a number of the speakers via LinkedIn already, so getting to attend was like getting that final validation that these weren’t just three AI Bots in a trench coat trying to get into the rated R movie. These were real humans, with real human experiences, and building a network felt more like making friends you’d wanna grab a drink and play a board game with.

Andrew Hartman, Voiceover Artist