The following is a flow of the creative process of conceptualising the branding of the ACEL 2018 National Conference held in Melbourne.
The first concepts for the announcement of the 2018 ACEL Conference were displayed during the last day of the 2017 ACEL National Conference. It was requested at a very short notice to where, at the time, I was helping manage the 2017 Conference on site. I went back to our National Office in Sydney and began work to turn around the above concepts in under 2 hours.
The current CEO wanted major changes done to the creative so I underwent a proper Branding Proposal strategy over the following weeks.
This was the first proper CONCEPT that was proposed to the Marketing Manager and the ACEL CEO with provided research, mood boards and a suite of variations. A lot of elements on display here ended up governing the final creative.
To further support the creative, a suite of images for all the 2018 Conferences were on display. Unifying all the major events for 2018.
The first proposal was constructive but the CEO did not agree with the chosen creative and artwork that was proposed. I went deeper into the creative to Photoshop a new graphic that can better serve as the core artwork for the Conference.
The next concept was close to the finished product. Many elements of this design will also make its way into branding for the final decision. This design was also the brief given to the team by the CEO and board but after studying the theme and also our market I started suggesting other core artwork ideas that can speak to the theme a lot better.
The EDM template was modified for the new creative as there was not that much feedback for change. The below was an example showcasing the ideas of using children to express the theme of the conference. While this was a departure from the initial brief, it was approved by the CEO and also the Victoria department of education.
The existing template was kept but I made new artwork to serve as imagery. This concept was approved but a decision by the CEO and the ACEL Board came through that they were changing the Theme of the 2018 Conference. This meant that the current logo will have to change which also meant the core artwork will need to change also - while keeping with the new brief.
The new Conference Theme was submitted to Design so I underwent redesigning the logo. The word "trust" was lost so the visual language that I had employed will have to change to the new "vs" notion of the new theme. I had borrowed many ideas from past concepts to turn around the final logo quickly.
The final concept was approved with little changes. The creative became more natural which consisted of kids in nature both living (experience) and learning/studying (evidence). This married well with the theme and the event was then launched publicly.
The creative of this conference also governed how I approached designing the other conferences for 2018. Using similar visual styles to unify all the designs so they looked complimentary when stacked next to each other.
