SXSW 2021 - reMark yout Journey

Challenge

For the very first time, SXSW will be held 100% online because of the coronavirus pandemic. This is a challenge for us to organize the annual event through digital communication. How could I develop a visual system that suits the changes and the new way of people's life?

Research

Based on what we’ve learned from the event, especially from the side of visual system, they trend to use multi-color system and live actions always a part of the system. And based on some online and social research, the target audience are open-minded and willing to try new things and technologies. But the way of how people treat digital communication is questionable. The performance will surely get effected even people are quite familiar with communicating through screens.

Brainstorming

To develop more ideas, I conducted a brainstorming to explore ideas from all kinds of aspects related to the events. From the perspective of who, where, what, when, why and emotions, I listed some of my thoughts here:

Conclusions and Highlights:

Emotion

With the epidemic, we still need to stay isolated, SXSW functioned not just the output of content, but the emotional experience. And this is a point that we have not seen in the design of the past few years.

Society

Complexity

Globalization

SXSW is a platform for socializing, but also an out-of-the-box idea. We need to stimulate the collision between different people and excite the spark, so as to expand the influence even further.

SXSW has an unparalleled level of complexity, both in content and form, so the design requires different contents to be presented in the same visual language.

Thanks to the online format, people from all over the world have the opportunity to participate in SXSW, so it is necessary to show a global point of view, and the concept design should be able to be understood by the whole world.

Color

In the selection of colors, I hoped it can bring the audience a dynamic, youthful, vibrant and fun experience, and are more in line with the digital display.

Typography

Neue Metana is a font family with a personality of loud, fun and aggressive. It balances the modern and distressed vibes and won’t be intimidated by the color and visual elements.

Stickers

In order to imitate the experience of how people put their stickers they collected in the travel, I created a bunch of digital stickers to be applied on applications. And what really highlighted the design for me is how I added eyes on each stickers to give some human touch.

For the key visuals, I’d love to implement an overwhelmed and busy tones. There is no grid or specification to follow, so the designers were allowed to be creative depends on the usages. But placing key information in the center is highly recommended.