The Pennsylvania Cup (PA) is an annual esports tournament and event hosted by Harrisburg University. Originally a collegiate esports tournament, the PA Cup is now geared towards the next generation of esports players and features competition for high school students across the state of Pennsylvania. 2024 was the first year the PA Cup was planned and executed entirely by students in the esports management degree program and became one of the smoothest running esports events HU has ever held.
As a student in ESPT 330 (Live Event Production), I was tasked with overseeing all graphic design related tasks for the event. These responsibilities included working on a potential update of the PA Cup Logo, designing broadcast assets for the livestream of the event, designing the trophies for the winning teams and photographing the event.
The first major task i worked on was a potential update for the PA Cup Keystone logo. One wish from many of my classmates was to connect the PA Cup more to Harrisburg University's varisty esports program, The HU Storm. With the Storm came the motif of clouds, lightning and electricity and that was my main inspiration for the edits done to the inside of the logo.
Though it was ultimately decided to leave the PA Cup logo as is for now, some of the work done here lives on as the lightning bolts were used as an asset in the PA Cup 2024 Volunteer jersey.
The second major task I worked on was the 2024 PA Cup broadcast graphics. For these graphics, I carried over the storm and lightning motif from my earlier logo work. These graphics were mostly templated, allowing for those working on the technical side of the livestream to easily drag and drop layers or edit text quickly.
(some graphics include placeholder information)
One of the last minute tasks I ended up with was designing the trophies for the tournament's winning schools after our original provider fell through. One very unique take on a trophy not seen often in esports is wresting style championship belts. Due to the nature of the situation, the turnaround time on these was very quick, having been designed and ordered all within a week. This would turn out to be a good choice as the belts were a hit with not only our class but the students who were competing for them as well.
event photography
(photos shared here are limited to volunteers and staff to reduce the exposure of competitors who are minors)
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