Format: Live Conference

Learning Journal:

The client had never thrown a conference before, but were interested in starting a movement. To accomplish this groundswell, they needed to make 500 vaguely associated HR professionals feel bonded after 3 days. From risk management professionals to yoga teachers no one could feel out of place. I knew I would graphic record the speakers, but I also wanted the participants to navigate the conference using a new type of conference program that doubled as a journal. We decided to call this their Learning Journal. I developed iconography that could be used to navigate sessions by type and tracks. They also would keep the journal and refer to it again as a personal record and artifact of the event.

Listening Wall and Conference Navigation

We also conceived of an interactive area we named the Listening Wall. Here I illustrated portraits by listening to people’s personal stories during a networking happy hour that accompanied a festive (pre-covid), dance-worthy reggae band on the first night. Over 3 hours, I interviewed people as I simultaneously illustrated their portraits on fragments of foam core. Then I “fused” these portraits together on the wall, placing them along the hand-drawn lines I used in the branding. Then over the next 3 days, participants were able to write their own ideas down using markers from the table in front of the wall and other pieces of fragmented foam core so they could “fuse” even more of their ideas together into one vision. The familiar icons on the signage and swag helped everyone feel part of a shared experience as seen below…

Graphic Recording:

Everyone felt a sense of synergy with these different visual reference points, so the graphic recordings of the keynotes were icing on the cake! As seen below…