Leadership Pittsburgh Unboxed Conference
Project Overview Client: Leadership Pittsburgh, Inc.
Year: 2014
Leadership Pittsburgh is a non-profit organization in Southwestern Pennsylvania dedicated to developing diverse civic leaders to serve the region. In 2014 the organization launchedUnboxed, a new, semi-annual conference. The goal of Unboxed is to bring together a mix of influential thinkers, innovators, and leaders from the Pittsburgh region to share ideas that push boundaries and expand perspective. The conference emphasizes emerging ideas and forces participants to go beyond traditional thinking, challenges preexisting beliefs, and emphasizes emerging ideas that are “outside-the-box.” The Pittsburgh Post Gazette called Unboxed “The ultimate intellectual buffet.”
Leadership Pittsburgh asked ThoughtForm to develop an identity that would both capture the innovative, dynamic spirit of the conference and be a sustainable, flexible visual system that could be used in future Unboxed conferences. I worked to establish the visual identity system and produce collateral material and brand applications for the first conference.
Team
Nick Abele, Lead Designer
Read Agnew, Principal
Tom Malacki, Construction Detailing
Jack Kelley, Motion Design Specialist
Work completed at ThoughtForm
After talking with the Unboxed staff, I felt it would be most important to create a visual identity that would capture the spirit of the ideas presented at the conference. Ideas that are new and emerging, and push traditional boundaries and expectations.
I created a mark that could take on many different forms. The mark follows one rule; use five lines to trace a cube. While four lines make a square, the addition of a fifth line goes beyond the square, reveals something more, and suggests a new shape. It pushes our perception into a new dimension. There are multiple ways to build and show this mark, and multiple color variations are possible, but all representations follow the same governing principle which makes the identity dynamic and flexible.
Events were scattered across a large resort. I designed a set of simple, bold signs using the visual vocabulary I had already developed to help direct participants. Directional signs were designed to read the same no matter which way they are flipped so they can denote any direction by simply rotating the sign. Destination signs were color coded to denote their location.
Since this was the first time the conference was held we decided to feature the name and logo prominently on stage, with colored patterns used for speaker introductions. We animated the logo to create a short intro video that played between speakers and to quiet the hall before each session.