Camp Paragon Panic!
VECTOR / PRINT / BRANDING / STORYLINE
OCTOBER 2022 – APRIL 2024
Unsettling Fun
Sometimes the most jarring horror stories are those that take place in otherwise comforting or nostalgic settings. One of these settings for many is summer camp. When my friend was running the JWU Players’ escape room in October of 2022, we were bouncing around story ideas and landed on a summer camp ran by a secret cult. At the time, I designed rudimentary-at-best shirts to fit the storyline. However, now that I have more experience, I redesigned and rebranded the cheesy-yet-spooky summer camp.
Purposeful Gaudy Design
One of the biggest challenges with this project was making something that looked story accurate, which was overexposed, borderline-MSPaint work, but still making it appealing and well-designed. For that, I settled with my archnemesis, a gradient, and handwriting fonts that narrowly avoided the infamous Comic Sans concept. Still, this is an innocent looking camp that has a dark secret, so on the bold campfire icon, subtle devil horn-shaped flames are coming off of the top. On the rest of the poster, there are spiders and a slight puddle of blood coming out from under a log to emphasize horrors being swept under the rug.
Merchandising is Key!
Merchandising a fake organization is always fun, especially when it’s something as weird as a culty summer camp. Of course, I wanted to harken back to the original project, which was a shirt design. On top of that, a simple baseball cap would fit the summer camp theme. Sure, the designs are simple, but include the more complex-yet-campy logo that was created.
Darkness in the Light
My love of horror from a blood-phobia-filled perspective often shows itself in innocent looking mediums. Who would think that a summer camp could be creepy outside of Friday the 13th? This escape room was very fun to be part of, especially as someone who played a hostage in the final room, but it was even more fun to expand upon it a year and a half later!
