The Digital Impact Summit:
Web Conference 2023
The second annual Digital Impact Summit, hosted by Forum One, is a premier event that explores the intersection of technology, strategy, and mission-driven impact.
This web conference was designed for nonprofit leaders, government agency professionals, and individuals committed to driving progress.
As the sole Visual Designer on a 4-person marketing team, I was tasked to create a cohesive and visually impactful branding system that would be used to create impactful assets for social media and marketing needs.
Below, see how I approached and developed the branding system for the Web Conference and how I used the designs as the foundation for social media assets.
Areas
Marketing, Visual Design
Visual Designer
Corey Hemingway
Platforms
Zoom, Desktop
In 2022, the Digital Impact Summit was created to help shine the spotlight on technological advances and digital impact within the nonprofit sector.
In 2023, due to the inaugural conference’s popularity, more sponsors and speakers came on board to support its continuing development. As the sole visual designer on the marketing team, I understood how important first impressions were and prepped to start iterating and creating visuals intended to build and evolve a branding system that was unique and its own, but still derive from Forum One’s own brand.
Web Conference Approach
As the sole visual designer on the marketing team, I was acutely aware of the very first set of pieces for a branding system - it felt like the primordial beginning.
Where should I start? How should I start?
I relied on my comfort (and favorite) starting process, which is iterating rough sketches. I started with some clichés, such as the lightbulb for example. Getting rough ideas - especially clichés out out of your head and on paper makes room for better ideas to take shape.
Better ideas did form once a particular design was chosen. To combat personal biases, I shared my ideas with my fellow designer and marketing colleagues. The pointer finger was majority agreed that it felt similar to the experience of pressing onto a screen that would then explode into various technological and futuristic elements like glitches, digitized textures, arrows, robotic features, and more.
After several iterations and several rounds of feedback, I moved away from illustrated appearances and brought in realism. I selected bolder and brighter colors with the intention that they represent the hope and fervor of an exciting technological future.
In the end, the final iteration replaced the bolder and brighter color palette with a more subdued and mature color palette, while also removing text that lived within the circular shapes altogether.
Social Media &
Social Hour Approach
The branding system completed and finalized, imagery was then created to be shared on social media to spread awareness of the upcoming web conference and of the in-person Social Hour events that were being hosted in the locations of New York City, Washington D.C., and Seattle.
