CIA Hackathon—Event Branding and Collateral

Tools Used:

Figma
Illustrator
InDesign

Skills Demonstrated:

Logo design
Brand identity
Collateral design
Information design
Creative direction
Leadership

Project Description:

This branding and collateral project was created for a hackathon event in partnership with ASU’s STEAM Labs, which was sponsored by the CIA (yes, that CIA!). I, along with two groups of undergraduate and graduate students, developed the event’s brand identity as well as the collateral and merchandise over the span of two semesters at ASU. I contributed to the project as a graphic designer during the first semester of the project, and was promoted to creative director for the second semester.

The hackathon was titled “Finding F.R.E.D.: A Chain Reaction Mystery. The story of the event revolves around the Friendly Robotic Engineering Droid (F.R.E.D.)’s sudden disappearance, calling on participants to solve the mystery with their own built Rube Goldberg (chain reaction) machines. The target audience for the event were groups of children and young adults ranging from 8-18 years of age. Our client wanted to blend the themes of steampunk, technology, and robotics to serve as the visual elements of the brand. My team and I developed several different branding options, and our client selected this identity with the focus on the F.R.E.D. character.

Designs and Decisions:

The second phase of the project focused on taking this established branding and applying it to recruitment, signage, event materials, merch, and awards to really make the event come alive. My job as creative director was to oversee my teammates’ work and facilitate group feedback sessions multiple times per week via FigJam. Each piece went through multiple rounds of iterations to ensure that every detail was cohesive with the event’s branding and with the other pieces of collateral. These collaboration sessions were where I got to practice strong leadership, communication, and decision making skills. My personal contributions to the designs of the project include the vectorization of the logo, development of the brand guidelines, and the recruitment flyer.

Below are just a few screenshots of our group FigJam board! Sharing and commenting was key to our success with this project.

Results:

logo/branding
3D F.R.E.D. model
Recruitment flyer
Wayfinding
Welcome sign
Pop-up banner
Missing poster
Nametags
Table signs
T-shirts
stickers/pins
Play money
certificates/trophies

This hackathon came to life with the hard work and dedication of myself and my teammates. Many hours spent on designing, iterations, different software, and client conversations went into the final result of the project. This experience was especially valuable to me because I was able to develop something over the course of many months, both as a team member and later as a leader. I now have a robust understanding of what is involved in a real-world project from conception to application with both perspectives in mind, and I can take that moving forward with the way I approach future endeavors.

The best part of the project was being able to see all of our hard work displayed at the hackathon in real life! Check out these pictures of the event to get a better idea of how all of the collateral was used:

BONUS: the STEAM Labs engineers were awesome enough to create a real life F.R.E.D. robot based on the 3D model we created for his character! He actually rolled around and talked to participants at the end of the event, and was a huge hit with the kids.