Be My Neighbor Day
For four years, I designed the annual ‘Be My Neighbor Day‘ event for WEDU PBS. This included designing all signage, paper collateral, giveaways, placemaking, and more, for an entire block party-style event—and planning much of it with the WEDU Events team as well—for the communities in and around Tampa Bay.
A Bit of Background
A little background...
The national ‘Be My Neighbor Day’ initiative was started by Fred Rogers Productions, the company behind TV shows like Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood (about the 4-year-old son of the Mister Rogers’ O.G. ‘Daniel Striped Tiger’ puppet). Be My Neighbor Day events are held individually by participating PBS stations, however they see fit to organize and host.
WEDU PBS’ annual local Be My Neighbor Day is a free event for the Tampa Bay community. In 2025, over 6,500 people attended WEDU PBS’ event, meeting costumed characters Daniel Tiger and Katerina Kittycat, playing games and activities, going on TV station tours, doing arts & crafts, meeting Community Helpers; watching performers on a giant stage, and more.
Mister Rogers with his ‘Daniel Striped Tiger’ puppet; pictured with illustrated Daniel Striped Tiger (now ‘Dad Tiger’) and his son, Daniel Tiger. You can totally see the resemblance, right?
Branding
Existing logo (yikes!)
As far as any kind of existing branding goes, in 2024 I received from Fred Rogers Productions a single (.jpg, no less!) version of a logo and a few different character graphics of Daniel Tiger and his friends… but that was the full extent of the assets provided.
Creating assets
First I recreated the generic Be My Neighbor Day logo as a vector file in Illustrator. I knew the font was Cooper Black, so I just edited and formatted the type to match the logo from Fred Rogers Productions. I cobranded with WEDU and PBS KIDS, added the mandatory PNC sponsor logo, and even added a cutout of Daniel Tiger peeking out from behind the wordmark. For versatility/due to anticipated sizing constraints in certain promotions, I also created some horizontal variants.
Responsibilities
I've worn many hats for this annual project...
My role in the event grew larger each year. As part of the small but mighty WEDU PBS Communications & Events department, my responsibilities over the years included:
- Designing every single bit of signage, to be displayed both leading up to and during the event. I intentionally created some of the signage in past years to be reusable with minimal or no edits—but there is always plenty of new signage needed each year (especially anything dated for a specific year’s event)
- Creating and setting up the original stage backdrop/decor (in 2024, I designed and sewed the colorful fabric panels at home, and in 2026 I added the big logo signage pieces)
- Planning and maintaining the (ever-changing!) layout of the event, which spans a whole block; this includes designing and updating the complicated campus map almost daily, as plans change and change and change leading up to the actual day…
- Coming up with activities and games, including designing in English and Spanish: all Fun Zone instructional signage, activity assets like postcards and puzzles as well as colorful decor signage and environmental design, and more (furthering WEDU PBS’ mission to serve its bilingual communities)
- Captaining the Green Village area, including designing huge signage, selfie stations with props, screenings of WEDU PBS’ original documentary about climate anxiety called Good Natured, eco-conscious ‘tips & tricks’ motion graphics, and more. I created the Green Village as a rather small area for Be My Neighbor Day in 2023, employing the ‘green’ theme for two reasons: the event that year fell exactly on Earth Day, and WEDU at the time was launching their SUSTAIN initiative.
2026
2026 marked my fourth official ‘Be My Neighbor Day’. After several years of growing pains and learning, my department (recently increased, to a team of four) now ran almost all of the high-level planning, and coordinating, and designing, organizing, advertising, supervising, problem-solving, etc., on top of all the actual creative projects involved. I still managed to design a few cool new things though…
2025
In 2025, I worked on my third ‘Be My Neighbor Day’ for WEDU PBS, where I designed all of the new event banners and signage, multiple maps, instructional signage for various activities, giveaways, placemaking & environmental design, and more, for the entire event.
2024
"Welcome to the Neighborhood"
In the canon of Mister Rogers and Daniel Tiger, everyone lives in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. For Be My Neighbor Day 2024, I had the [unfortunately, last-minute…] idea to create some kind of cute entrance arch to greet guests as they walk into the “Fun Zone” which is housed in the 4,800 sq. ft. ‘Studio 1′ of the WEDU TV station. This entrance had to be big—the studio has a 25’ ceiling—and wide enough to keep up with the flow of traffic into the most popular area of the whole event.
Over 30-something years of creative endeavors, I’ve become really good at creating/building things in my head, and often out of materials on hand. Born to two budding hoarders, I grew up savings odds and ends and pieces of what anyone else would call ‘junk’, so I have always had plenty of supplies for artistic projects and hobbies. Because of this, I was able to create a couple silly trees out of a few basic construction materials and some aforementioned junk…without ever even sketching it out first.
I grabbed some leftover chicken wire from gardening at home, paint brushes and brown & black acrylic paints I just always have on hand, and some scrap wood and shims from the workshop of WEDU’s set designer. I also bought four thick cardboard concrete-pouring forms, L-brackets and some other hardware, a roll of brown paper, a few cans of spray adhesive, green leaf-patterned fabric, and some square wood panels. Then I got to work.
I created the final result by myself in about 2 (long) days. The homemade, child-like aesthetic is intentional; the majority of the “Fun Zone” is children’s arts & crafts, and the Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood TV show illustration style includes distinctive patterns like the rough paper bark and small leafy pattern in the treetop fabric.
I also designed a double-sided banner: the front says, in both English and Spanish, “Welcome to the neighborhood!” and the back says “Thanks for visiting!” The bilingual aspect comes from WEDU’s focus on better serving its Hispanic communities; because of this, all of Be My Neighbor Day’s “Fun Zone” activities are designed in English and Spanish.
2023
