Interventions: A Student-Led Design Conference

During the Spring of 2017, my team at Scout - Northeastern's student-led design studio - was presented with the challenge of creating Northeastern's first ever student-led design conference from the ground up. Our team handled everything from concept, identity, brand, and collateral, while another team of students focused on logistics, funding, and other behind-the-scenes tasks. Over the course of the semester - and subsequently the next year - Interventions went from merely an idea in our heads, to a sold-out conference attended by over 300 students and designers from accross the United States. 

 

SC_postcard_v2-01

EARLY BRAINSTORMING

Before we even knew what the conference would be named, we began to do some initial brand explorations based on the brainstorming and branding exercises we did with our team. We knew we wanted the identity to be design-centric, friendly, unconventional, approachable, with the primary audience being students and designers. 

Interventions_Brainstorming_v1-01

NEXT DRAFTS

We quickly realized that determining a more specific name and goal for the conference would be vital to us creating an effective brand, and started to get into the nitty gritty. After many meetings and discussions, we settled on the title "Intervention by Design", which soon became simply "Interventions." The conference would examine the intentions and
consequences of design that alters large-scale behaviors, experiences, and values.

Below are some of my earliest explorations working to incorporate the concept of "Interventions" visually into the brand, followed by my final proposed direction, utilizing a "then and now" concept, along with a duotone image treatment.

Interventions_Brainstorming_v1-02
Interventions_Brainstorming_v1-03

FINAL COLLATERAL

After each of our team members presented their final design directions, we unanimously settled on a direction incorporating playful imagery featuring hands as a primary element. This branding was applied accross all elements at the conference, including but not limited to:

  • Wayfinding
  • Name Badges
  • Posters
  • Social Media
  • Web
  • T-Shirts
  • Posters
  • Keynote Presentations
Processed with VSCO with a6 preset
Processed with VSCO with a6 preset
ScoutInterventions-6 – joethomas
ScoutInterventions-21- joethomas
scoutpanel_leftaligned
pinkyswear_crop
Website


Photographs from the day of the event provided by Joe Thomas (@joethomas), and Brian Bae (@brianbobbae). All work done in collaboration with Scout.