ThinkNation
Branding and site design for a tech event that inspires young people.
ThinkNation is a one day inspiration event for young people. It brings together leading artists and thinkers, to tackle five big questions on how technology impacts everyday life and shapes our future. This participatory event is the first of its kind, giving this generation a platform to discuss, question and analyse the issues technology will create in the future they will inherit.
Approach
Aiming at an audience who have grown up with the Internet. They are tech savvy, politically sharp and used to fast trends and extraordinary access to information. This demographic can be very hard to pin down, which often results in them being misunderstood and patronised by targeted design. So we needed to create a brave, abstract and eye-catching aesthetic for the brand – something that would cut sharply through the tides of data on social feeds and create a spark of intrigue. It was vital this shouldn't look like an event, it should feel like a movement.
Result
Steering well clear of any visual cliches of technology and the future, we used a bold luminous colour palette and clean abstract shapes to create a piercing aesthetic. The geometric style of the logo gives a gentle nod to Futurism, but also offers great transferability; from web to stencils to projections. The unexpected colour pallete was essential to lift the brand into positive space – helping to lighten the tone of the event's sometimes pressing and serious questions. The designs were a resounding success with the client and most importantly the demographic.
Visit: http://thinknation.co/
(Site built by Drupal specialists, Miggle.
Logo
The geometric lines of the word THINK give a strong, structured appearance that emphasise the idea of connectivity and networks. The simple quadrilateral behind NATION evokes not only a speech bubble but also a light being projected into the unknown. Several versions of the logo were created for different uses.
Brand guidelines
I created a some brand guidelines for the event organisers, covering everything from logo usage to typography. With multiple sponsors and supporters, they wanted ensure the brand could be reproduced consistently across all promotional material, whether internal or external.
Analogue vs digital
Geometric forms feature prominently throughout the website's design. A combination of minimalist patterns overlaid on photos and blocks of colour help give sharp contrasts between sections, and also visually represent both analogue and digital signals. These waves and zig-zags contribute a sense of striking boldness and tactility to the overall aesthetic.
What they said...
I approached Alaric to create the web designs and branding for ThinkNation, my platform and event aimed at young people, because I knew he'd deliver.
Having worked with him on other agency work, I was certain that he had the ideas and creativity to develop a design that would not only reflect the subject matter of ThinkNation (a task in itself) but which would also challenge me with strong opinions on what ‘great’ looked like. This was critical: he took our concept of what the designs hoped to achieve and, using his insight and expertise, quickly distinguished what they actually needed to achieve. Furthermore, he successfully worked remotely with a developer team who he’d never previously collaborated with.
The result was a creative, distinctive site design and branding, that has gone down exceptionally well with the target audience and industry peers. I look forward to working with Alaric in the future as ThinkNation grows and develops.
Lizzie Hodgson
Digital Strategist & Founder of ThinkNation