International conference highlighting new and exciting advancements in blood-based technology
COLLABORATIVE
INNOVATION
Branding, Illustrator, Photoshop
ABOUT
Collaborative Innovation was an international conference held by Blood Centers of America, the largest blood supply network in the U.S., consisting of over 60+ blood centers around the United States. They partnered with the Oklahoma Blood Institute to put it on, as OBI is one of the largest contributors to BCA. When the conference was announced, they wanted branding that would hint at Donable®, one of the largest innovations in blood recruitment software in decades, as well as a subtle highlight to ABO, a reference to the four blood groups.
01 Research
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02 Sketch
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03 Design
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01 Research ✴ 02 Sketch ✴ 03 Design ✴
01 RESEARCH
For the most part, I was given creative freedom to create the branding for Collaborative Innovation. The only guidelines I was given was to subtly highlight “ABO” in Collaborative, and to align the branding with Donable®, which I also created the branding for. Besides these requests, the world was my oyster. To begin my process, I started researching conferences being held today; checking out what trends are making their way into the conference space. Gradients, wide and bold fonts, and simple 2D logos have been the ongoing trends for conference branding recently, so I wanted Collaborative Innovation to line up with that. Though smaller than Adobe MAX or Config, it still deserves to be a cool brand with sweet SWAG potential.
The main design challenge of this project was how I could make ABO subtly distinct, yet keep it within the bounds of the branding. It’s more complex than simply capitalizing the letters. Likewise, making sure the floret logo reflected Donable® but still stood on its own was a bit tricky. Thankfully, as a conference about innovation, the motif of a lightbulb could be perfectly finagled into a floret. This design went through many, many iterations before landing on the final look. Basing a logo design around blood and lightbulbs was a fun challenge.
02 SKETCH
03 DESIGN
The design really started to come together once I landed a solid font. The font Messapia, designed by Luca Marsano and distributed by Collletttivo worked beautifully for the logo. An experimental typeface itself, Messapia was the perfect fit for a conference celebrating experimentation and innovation. The floret logo started to come together soon after, testing out different fits and designs for how the lightbulb could stand out individually. The subtle highlight for ABO was the result of an accident; simply drawing the wrong shape in the wrong spot on my artboard. However, after consideration and some workshopping, that mistake landed a spot in the final logo. Using a reverse of the gradient on top of itself made for a beautifully subtle distinction for the letters, without compromising the look and feel of the brand. What resulted was a sleek and modern brand, packed with hidden meanings, built for versatility.
