Wonder Woods
Wonder Woods can best be described as a camping trip, music festival, immersive art show, and wedding all rolled into one long weekend in the wilds outside of Berea, Kentucky. For two men who grew up in small towns in conservative states and never thought they’d have the chance to experience the same love and respect as those around them, planning a wedding was literally a dream come true. And so, the couple knew immediately they wanted to throw a different type of celebration. Given this was not going to be your typical wedding, the couple knew they needed to set the right tone from day-one. Thus the event was given a name, Wonder Woods, which took precedence over the couple’s names.
Agency
Media-Objectives
Practice Area
Client
Jamon Deaver & Joey Lawton
Industry
Project Vision
The visual identity, inspired by a quote “Live by the sun and love by the moon”, features a warm and cool color palette and simple geometries. Overlapping lines resemble the various connections each has made throughout life and how they’re about to intersect in one place.
The invites, which were oversized concert posters, promised — big city fun meets country living; summer camp mixed with Bonnaroo and Coachella; one epic wedding weekend filled with love and wonderment. And it seems this effort to brand the event as Wonder Woods paid off, as guests arrived fully ready for the weekend with their own branded tshirts, water bottles, temporary tattoos and even a giant festival flag.
Wonder Woods was held on a 40-acre family-owned property in central Kentucky, from June 19-21, 2021. About 230 guests were in attendance, with 125 of them camping on the grounds. Originally planned for Labor Day 2020, the event was rescheduled to Summer Solstice 2021. Which ended up having more significance not only because of the day’s meaning but because it was Pride month and the first time many people gathered socially due to the pandemic
Visual identity guidelines for Wonder Woods, custom typeface was developed for the logomark.
Joey Lawton
Wedding invitation and promotional materials (private instagram account) took a nontraditional
approach.
Joey Lawton
Signage, wayfinding and decor carried the brand-identity throughout the woods. Campers
overlook the Field Camp from the top of the lake.
Logan Futej / Joey Lawton
Design + Execution
All of the installations support the general themes of the spaces and are fastidiously integrated with the interior context and finishes by STG Design, the project’s architecture and interiors firm.
We translated Oracle’s interest in supporting the region’s creative resources by partnering with more than two dozen artists, illustrators, photographers, and writers from around the state. We made thoughtful use of a wide range of unconventional materials including a half mile of colorful Cat-6 cable, 21 vintage western paintings, 8 ferrofluid lava lamps, 2,700 Matchbox cars, 30 3-D printed NASA models, hundreds of Texas travel magnets, a dozen peacock feathers, 366 cassette tapes, 10 high school football helmets, and 12 stainless-steel fryer baskets. About a third of the installations include intentionally low-fi mechanical interactions or involve specialty lighting. Most are accompanied by interpretive plaques that connect the work with the backstory of its content, acting as a guided tour of Texas for many of the college recruits that relocate to Austin to begin their careers with Oracle.
Shots of festival grounds from various times of the day, which featured seating and tables for
guests along with a performance stage.
Logan Futej / Chase Cain
Local muralist live painted a vintage BMW during the event.
Logan Futej
Off-grid show pavillion, built from reclaimed building materials, provided an area for guests to
get ready. Exterior of pavillion features a hand-painted mural.
Jenny Annewalt
Guests partook in a variety of activities throughout the weekend, including dancing, swimming, ceramic arts, and metal work.
Project Details
Design Team
Media-Objectives
Photo Credits
Jenny Annewalt, Joey Lawton, Logan Futej, Chase Cain
Open Date
June 2021