Designthinkers Conference Materials by Liying Wang is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2023 Bronze A' Design Award in Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design Competition Category.
BronzeGraphic· 2023
Designthinkers Conference Materials
by Liying Wang
Client: Academy of Art University
Bronze A' Design Award Winner in Graphic Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #141209The Design
About Designthinkers Conference Materials
The goal is to design sophisticated conference materials that align with the theme of the year. At times design seems to be a maze, as designers' journey along its tortuous pathways leads to wrong turns, dead ends, and unknown destinations. Liying Wang tries to utilize the maze as a symbol of the design process and its complexities while visualizing the design and creativity process to evoke similar emotions from the audience.
The Recognition
About the Bronze A' Design Award
Designthinkers Conference Materials is a Bronze A' Design Award winner, a highly prestigious recognition granted to outstanding designs distinguished by creativity, ingenuity, and astuteness. Bronze winners are amply skillful and strikingly creative artifacts that authenticate the vast experience, imagination, and resourcefulness of their designers. Designthinkers Conference Materials is expected to be a highly regarded, admired, and cherished object that is notably professional and innovative. This Bronze A' Design Award-winning design incorporates best practices in art, science, design, and technology, and is excellent for its attention to detail. Designthinkers Conference Materials splendidly satisfies needs, touches desires, charms feelings, and appeals to curiosity.
Interviews
Grand Interview
Your innovative approach to visualizing the design process as a maze in Designthinkers Conference Materials has earned recognition with a Bronze A' Design Award - could you elaborate on how this metaphor emerged and evolved during your creative process?
The core metaphor of the maze emerged from the fundamental truth that the design process is an unknown journey. Starting with the conference theme of exploring the creative process, I recognized that we don’t know what will happen at the next intersection. My initial concept was to capture this sense of uncertainty and exploration. It evolved from a simple graphic to a sophisticated system where the typography of "Truth" is actually formed by the maze pathways. This approach bound the process (the maze) intrinsically to the goal (the truth), making the entire visual system a powerful, integrated storytelling device rather than just a decorative element.
The sophisticated visual system you developed for Designthinkers Conference Materials spans multiple touchpoints - how did you ensure consistency while adapting the maze concept across different formats, from the 18x24-inch poster to the conference signage?
To ensure consistency across formats, from the 18x24-inch poster to the various signage and program materials, I established a strict yet flexible visual system. The deep blue color palette, the structural maze typography, and the signature magenta accent dots were the non-negotiable brand elements. For the large poster, the maze is the dominant, high-impact background; for smaller applications like the name badges, I employed a modular design approach. I would crop and isolate recognizable sections of the maze pattern or use its lines to frame key information, ensuring the texture and cohesive feel of the system were present without sacrificing the clarity needed for practical function.
In creating Designthinkers Conference Materials, how did you balance the complex symbolism of the maze with the need for clear, effective communication that would resonate with conference attendees?
My approach to balancing the maze's complex symbolism with the need for clear communication centered on establishing a strategic hierarchy of information and leveraging color contrast. While the maze is the conceptual and aesthetic backdrop, I ensured all critical information—the conference name, theme, dates, and location—was positioned in areas of high contrast or negative space, using bold, clean typography for immediate legibility. The maze, therefore, works as a rich, evocative subtext: it guides the eye and reinforces the theme of the "unpredictable adventure," but it never compromises the primary function of the materials, which is to inform the conference attendees effectively.
Behind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- Design the conference materials for an existing conference. Create a sophisticated visual concept that matches the feel of the theme of the year. The goal is to demonstrate the ability to integrate conceptual ideas and visual design skills.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Poster: 18 in x 24 in, Program: 13 in x 19 in
- Tags
- Conference Materials, Visual Communication, Poster, Program, Website, conference signage
- Production Technology
- Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign
- Design Challenge
- How can creating a novel visual system for the conference cater to the needs and interests of the majority of attendees, while simultaneously aiding the organization in increasing attendance and achieving its mission of enhancing awareness of visual communication? Additionally, how can the process of design and creativity be visually depicted to evoke comparable emotions and responses from the intended audience? I keep asking myself those questions and thinking about what symbol or element can build connections and evoke the audience's similar feelings.
- Research
- Designthinkers is an annual conference with a mission to gather diverse perspectives to explore the process of design and creativity. The theme for 2018 is Speak The Truth. The whole design process is like an unknown journey, like a maze. We don't know what will happen at the next intersection. Designers like those little magenta dots, going on the road of our own choice.
- Inspiration
- Design is like a maze, with unpredictable twists and turns, where each decision can make or break a project. To capture this, I created a visual representation of the design process as a maze, symbolizing the confusion and challenges designers face, with every decision leading to a different outcome. It encourages pushing boundaries and finding innovative solutions while celebrating the creative process and its rewarding challenges. The design guides us through the maze, highlighting the endless possibilities that come with our work.
- Project Duration
- The project started in September 2018 and finished in December 2018 in San Francisco.
- Operation Flow
- Various deliverables were developed for the conference, including a promotion poster, program, website, application, name badge, and conference signage.
- Image Credits
- Image #1: Creator Liying Wang
Image #2: Creator Liying Wang
Image #3: Creator Liying Wang
Image #4: Creator Liying Wang
Image #5: Creator Liying Wang
Sponsored
Explore Beyond Designers.org
Discover products, services and opportunities from our advertising partners.
More to Explore
Related Designs
Explore more award-winning designs from the same category, selected by merit.
