Anime Expo
Anime Expo is North America’s largest anime and manga event. With over 110,000 unique visitors through the turnstiles in 2018, we were asked to design the merchandise that would not only increase sales, but propel this year’s branding and storyline further than any of the previous 26 years of the Expo. AX is breaking out of its subculture status and has grown into one of the largest events in all of Los Angeles annually. They needed the merchandise to not just stand out among the hundreds of vendors, but to be coveted by the faithful thousands in attendance.
Anime Expo gives fans the rare opportunity to meet and hear from some of the most famous anime, manga and musical artists from Japan and get into the action through cosplay, karaoke, and exclusive screenings. We wanted to take their artwork to the next level, and give fans a deeper connection to the event while help build out and define AX’s fresh rebrand. Working closely with the AX team, we designed over a dozen individual items across a variety of independent themes, selling out over 80% of stock by just the second day of the event.
Client: Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation
Creative Direction: Mike Payne
Photography: Mike Payne