We've prepared a new look for our first ever digital conference.
Last year’s event - so close to fruition, was abruptly derailed by the now ever-present COVID-19. The posters were hanging in the halls, the vinyls were proofed, and name tag spelling was double, triple checked. Then, a week before the big day, the unfortunate news came that it would have to be cancelled.
Fast forward: working entirely digitally is, dare I say- familiar? GCM’s Colloquium Executive Team, alongside wonderful faculty advisors, came together to begin planning an entirely digital conference. The first of its kind. This time, it is no longer paired with the fourth year business plan and thesis expo as it was in the previous few years. We look to create a magnificent conference, introducing and sharing knowledge between students and members of industry across the graphic arts.
Our goal this year? International. We are no longer bound by the brick and mortar (and glass) campus, or the city limits. We have the opportunity to teach and learn from international voices.
Our #Rebrand
The marketing and creative team, led by Brittany Vucinic, has created our brand for the upcoming year. We strongly believe that Sustainability needs to be addressed more and we wanted our branding to ignite the discussion and we can’t wait for you to experience it. To start, check us out on Instagram or Facebook! Or, let's connect on LinkedIn.
The Design Process - The Designer's Perspective
The Numerous Revisions
At the beginning, it was decided that we were going to keep our theme as Sustainability to honour last year's team and all the work they did. With that in mind, I had total design control over how our new brand was going to look. I knew I wanted our branding to clearly illustrate our theme, so I incorporated shades of blue and green. Illustrated below are my different logo design versions.
When I was designing the logo, I did some research to see what concepts I could incorporate. I ended up using transparencies as I knew most, if not all, our promotional items would be digital (transparencies have a hard time printing properly). I really liked the idea of incorporating leaves in the logo as I feel they represent sustainability well. Since our conference is going to be digital, I wanted to include two of Toronto's most popular landmarks, the CN Tower and Rogers Centre. The purpose for this decision was to showcase the city our school is based in as we are aiming to have an international audience. Near the end of the revision process, I tried incorporating different Ryerson buildings to further highlight our school.
The design on the left was inspired by our Ryerson logo. I tried incorporating our school colours and logo design in the buildings however, we did not want to add another colour to the branding. The design on the right has our program's main building illustrated, The School of Graphic Communications Management. Our building has an array of windows in the front however, the illustration was not distinctive enough to include in the logo. It was for these reasons why the above ideas were scraped.
The Final Logo
After going through multiple revisions I came to the final design, which included the widely known Student Learning Centre (SLC) at Ryerson. I ended up using the SLC as I thought the abnormal shape would be distinctive enough to properly incorporate Ryerson in the logo.
The Header Design
When it came to designing the header for our socials, I wanted to create a design element that properly illustrated how Sustainability involves multiple areas having to work together. With this in mind, I designed the web that is located on the left hand side of our header. I wanted to include multiple sustainability icons as well as print related icons to showcase how they can work in harmony.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I am very proud of the work I have done for Colloquium this year. Sustainability is a very important subject and I wanted to properly represent how we need to all work together to ensure the future health of our planet.
"The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it." - Robert Swan
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