Because we had so much fun doing it last year, we decided to lend a helping hand to University of California San Diego for this year’s KASCON. The typeface we chose was the elegant Whitney from the renowned Hoefler & Frere-Jones foundry, and we chose three main colors to reflect the balance of energy (baby blue), laid-back Cali calm (navy), and passion (red).

The primary logomark:

(more about the process, the website, and PDF presentation after the jump!)

The Secondary Mark

The greatest challenge we faced in creating a brand for KASCON21 was a secondary mark that would communicate the theme of the conference, New Wave. We began by doing the obvious - drawing different variations of waves. But after several unsatisfying attempts, we decided to play up one of the strengths of our logomark, the typography. We wrote out New Wave using Whitney Medium Italics and carefully aligned it in a circle. The result:

One word of advice in creating a logo: keep it simple and flexible. We made sure that our logo could take on different colors as well as gradients. It’s also very scalable, making it suitable for a huge poster or a small t-shirt.

Tightening the Theme

The UCSD KASCON21 staff had put together a comprehensive vision and mission statement. The only problem was that it didn’t elaborate on the theme name “New Wave” and was also a bit too long. We suggested that a play on the word “New” be made to echo important points in the original document. We came up with a slogan of New Knowledge, New Connections, New Wave to suggest that KASCON is a place to learn, meet, and as a result, build a sort of movement. From there, we came up with short and sweet vision statement that we’ve been able to use in the brochure and the website. Check it out.

The Website

We learned a great deal from last year’s Princeton site, which was powered by Movable Type and used a blog-like system to post news of speakers and entertainers. For KASCON21, we felt that an established “Confirmed Speakers” and “Confirmed Entertainers” section on the front page would make the conference immediately appealing to first-time visitors. San Diego is a great place to go, but what is the real draw? The great people and the interesting topics they’ll explore, right? We also used high-quality images of San Diego for some of the page backgrounds, trying to instill the beachy calm throughout. The elements of the brand can be seen throughout the site.

Website screenshots (from left to right: Homepage, Schedule, Entertainers)

(visit www.kascon21.com to see the site in full; you can register online for the March 31-April 1 conference)

Summary

Creating a brand is never easy, but it can be very fun and rewarding. Some important questions to keep on asking yourself are: does the brand carry meaning? Does it appeal to people? Is it expressive enough? Can it work in various forms? Do I like it and really believe in it?

It’s only natural to go through several revisions before you finally choose one that works. We have many versions of KASCON21 that we’re more than embarassed to show you. What counts is that you immerse yourself in the process and let your creative energy take over. Talk to people, browse the web, go to a musuem, take a nap, make doodles - anything. Soon enough, outlines will emerge, and all you’ll have to do is fill in the colors.

Download the KASCON21 Brand Presentation (PDF)

Sample collateral applications:

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Posted by Peter Kang