The High Desert House Party
This year I made a commitment to myself to do the big things now. Life is short and I am tired of waiting on made-up timelines to do the projects I want to do.
In January we were in Joshua Tree discussing our goals for the year, and I said I wanted to start designing for events. We have always wanted to do something cool on our property so we already have the venue, and we have many friends who were down to help.
We are 3 days out today, and I am genuinely so excited and crazy busy. What’s surprised me most is how much of this came together through people just offering. The stage manager, artists, ice cream, everyone with a band offered to play, my sister is flying in to help. Its so cool watching my friends show up to build something together. I keep telling people it feels like planning a wedding like you can really see how many people love you by who shows up.
So that’s what we’ve been building since December: a music festival on our property featuring live bands and artists. We have fifty-ish friends camping for the weekend and we’ve named it the High Desert House Party.
The property as the brief
We knew early on the art direction should come from the location. Our cabin was built in the 1950s as one of the many small tract homesteads. It has several little landmarks: a water tower, an outhouse, etc. These pieces of history became the iconography running through the whole identity.
We pulled photos from our property and the land around it, then ran them through bitmap treatments to create abstract graphics of the surrounding landscape.
The design lives somewhere between indie western and low-key psychedelic. Our friends’ music has a desert-Americana vibe, so the design leans into that.
The guidebook
I made a printed guide for the weekend, which might be my favorite piece of the whole thing. It has the schedule, the run of show, a list of vendors, a hand-drawn map of the property, and a long list of our local Joshua Tree recommendations.
The maker market
The maker market will feature my sister selling her jewelry, another friend selling homemade ceramics, Riley selling his paintings, and my friend Yazzy making custom ice cream.
We will also have a block printing station: we cut stamps of all the property icons, and at the market people can bring a tee and stamp their own arrangement.
A personal project will always teach you more than a client one. I highly recommend giving yourself a brief that nobody is paying for.
It’s this Saturday, May 2nd, and there will be much more to share after, and keep an eye out for real-time pics on our Instagram!
