The design and artwork for a conference is its visual identity. Often associations start planning next year’s conference around the beginning (or a few weeks prior) to the current year’s meeting, and it is of the utmost importance to establish a brand from the very first piece of marketing collateral — the first save-the-date postcard or first ad in a journal. It is key this brand is prominent and consistent.
For associations often, each year’s conference has a different location and different theme. However, some clients unify branding elements across all conferences, and add a different twist to it each year to promote the changing location/theme. The Society For Biomaterials (SFB) — a multidisciplinary society of academic, healthcare, governmental, and business professionals dedicated to promoting advancements in all aspects of biomaterial science, education, and professional standards to enhance human health and quality of life —is one association that has implemented consistent brand elements to represent all of its annual meetings.
“When developing a conference brand, it’s important to keep in mind what makes your association and event unique,” says Caroline Foote, Director of MarCom of Red Chair Communications. “The goal is create a memorable and unique identity that supports, and is consistent, with an organization’s overall brand. Creating a graphical element or theme that is an extension of your brand and carries over from year-to-year can resonate with your audience beyond simply focusing on the event location.”
For SFB, the beginning of this brand technique started with a design that used a blue humanoid figure positioned like Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian man. Biomaterials such as mechanical knee-joints and mechanical shoulder pieces were Photoshopped in to appeal to SFB members and people in the industry.
"This blue humanoid has been a recurring theme throughout all the meeting designs since and gives meeting attendees an emotional connection to SFB’s Annual Meeting, which aims to increase participation and attendance,” said Mark Denato, Creative Director of Red Chair Communications.
Although, the location of the meeting is also incorporated into the design and varies each annual meeting, the consistent blue humanoid design remains.
“The meeting held in Disney used the tagline, ‘Animating Materials,’ and used the blue figure in a series of filmstrips,” said Denato. “The recent meeting in North Carolina used several variations of the figure in a racing flag pattern. Each is unique in their own way, yet each one still maintains brand consistency.”
SFB’s commitment to their brand was rewarded with an Association Trends Award for the design of the Annual Meeting in Denver, which focused on the theme of Pioneering the Future of Biomaterials.
