The Florida Book Awards
Branding, marketing, and event design for the Florida Book Awards.
To learn more about the program, visit: floridabookawards.org
The Rebrand
The Florida Book Awards celebrate the best literary work by Florida authors every year since 2006. FSU Libraries, in partnership with Florida Humanities, go through the process of opening a call for submissions, recruiting jurors, fundraising, and planning an annual award dinner.
The Florida Book Awards did not have a well-defined brand until 2024. Until then, the program’s social media presence was limited, and most marketing efforts were inconsistent.
My challenge was to create a new visual identity that made the program appear fresh, energetic, and unequivocally Floridian. This vision came to life in the form of an old-Florida-inspired look, incorporating paper textures, warm tones, and hand-painted Florida and Fauna elements. Below are some of the before-and-afters.
Logo
New Branding Guide
Here on the right are the watercolor illustrations I made for the event. I painted these on Arches cold-press paper, and scanned them so I could clean the background and use them on the programs. I also ordered a custom-made FSU Libraries wax seal and chiffon ribbon to decorate the programs and schedule of events. Below is a photo of the finished programs!
The Event
For the 2025 award dinner, I was given the additional task of making the floral arrangements and table settings (one of my hobbies!). I went to Trader Joes with a p-card and a vision, and the result is still one of my favorite things I’ve ever done at the libraries. For the tablescapes, I used candles, glass bottles, grapefruit, oranges, and flowers.
Everything was so good that:
-One author asked me if I do wedding flowers (not yet)
-Another author asked me to sign the program so she could have it when I “become famous”.