Defining Her Future
Creative Marketing Designer | November 2020 – March 2021
Pitched and developed creative vision, within team of four, for “Defining Her Future,” an annual student-led, 500+ attendee leadership conference
Implemented brand guidelines for all creative assets, such as typeface, color palette, and core design elements
Designed conference logo and swag bag contents (t-shirt, stickers, mask, tote bag, bullet journal), distributed to the first 100 attendees
Managed promo video production, edited videos in Avid Media Composer, and created animations/GIFs and story filter for Instagram
The event took place via Zoom on March 5, 2021. It featured networking sessions with companies such as Adobe and EY, seminars and panelists from companies like LinkedIn and Twitter, and more!
After our first creative meeting, we brainstormed ways in which Courage could be represented. We ran with the mountain and strong pose/silhouette idea. The designs with teal backgrounds were my original drafts, while the ones with the off-white backgrounds were created after we settled on a color palette (see below). However, the conference director thought our designs were too literal of the theme, so she gave us more guidance and we re-started. It was a bummer because we had spent a few weeks on these designs, but it taught us all the importance of flexibility and communication. Design is not a simple one-take process.
To assist with the “take 2” of brainstorming, we each created a design guideline and ended up using my color palette and Balboa Plus across all of our designs. I loved this much more than the original! Groovy vibes.
The next step was branding. We kept our initial mountain idea and drew from western inspiration. I went through many feedback sessions and revisions, and the three designs below were approved and used for stickers in the swag bag, Instagram GIFs, and displayed throughout the website.
I was proud because my mountain sun design was such a hit that it was also used as DHF 2021’s main logo, displayed on the Eventbrite, Zoom backgrounds, and website. .
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we orchestrated a completely virtual conference experience. To accompany the unprecedented time, we added a mask (South By Sea) into the swag bag. Below were some of my design ideas, but the beloved mountain design was ultimately chosen. It has a shadow variation that is different from the original.
Below are photos of the swag bag and a few goodies, which were all designed by me! The bag was distributed first-come-first-serve to 200 attendees. To increase accessibility, we also created a virtual “bag” attendees had access to through a password-protected page on the website. People could click on a cover and it opened an external link. For example, "What To Listen To" featured podcast suggestions and a DHF Spotify playlist.
Creating an Instagram filter was one of my favorite projects. After brainstorming 10 notable women with my team, I placed images of them onto an Illustrator document. Using the pen tool, I created an outline of each woman and made sure to include identifiable features, such as Ruth Bader Ginsberg's glasses. Then, I copied and pasted the vector art into Figma where a member of the logistics team put them into Effects Maker and uploaded it to Instagram using Spark AR Studio. Women from top left to bottom right: Michelle Obama, Frida Kahlo, Rosa Parks, Greta Thunberg, Kamala Harris, Reese Witherspoon, Malala Yousafzai, Coco Chanel, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Oprah Winfrey. I tested the filter too!
Conference attendees also received a DHF bullet journal that could be used in a note-taking application, like Notability, or printed out. Below is the journal cover, a page to list your current favorite tunes, and an example of a weekly spread.
Below are Instagram feed and story content. The first image was posted at the start of the day so attendees could go to Active Coffee Co and receive a free cloud coffee. The second image was posted after the second address speaker, Bing Han, spoke about anti-Asian violence. I also implemented a story series called “Motivation Monday” where an inspirational quote was posted each week to help people start their week off on a positive note and to promote DHF.
Defining Her Future 2021 Promotional Video
What is Courage?