Leading the creative development for DesignThinkers was at once completely exhilarating and incredibly daunting—considering this is developing creative for the top designers in the industry the pressure was on! We ultimately landed on the concept of confessions. One of our designers noted how religiously people attend DesignThinkers every year. So we started thinking about religion, tenets, and the fact that as designers, we care so deeply about our work.
The confessions concept was more than just a visual style. It led us to develop the classic designer archetypes, shown in silhouette, with their design confessions hand lettered on top, to really speak to the target audience in their language. We also integrated a digital confession booth that allowed attendees to share their confessions via social media to help build additional buzz at the event.
All of the photography was shot in-house. The team didn’t have previous experience with hand-lettering, so I decided we would give ourselves a crash course. A lot of google searching, various markers and mounds of tracing paper later, I discovered the iPad Pro and pencil with Procreate was the way to go. The ability to edit on the fly allowed for the forgiving process we needed. I love that the app actually records as you work—below is a video of the lettering process for one of the type treatments I created: