Visual Identity Expansion for Marketing Industry Conference

Outlook 2024 is an in-person conference held for marketing professionals created by Adweek, taking place in the context of a multifaceted year marked by a presidential election, cultural polarization, the Summer Olympics, technological advancements, economic uncertainty, and significant creative developments.

 2024 marked a pivotal year for Adweek, celebrating its 45th anniversary and kicking off the year with a powerful first event. Given the relative success and good reception of the 2023 branding, the decision was made to build on the visual identity, as opposed to a full visual overhaul, as has been the case for previous years. 

While the 2023 branding was loved by both the event audience, as well as internally within the company, it was ultimately limited in its potential for application, given the reliance on only a single graphic and a three color palette, two of which were black and white. The branding was loved, but we needed something with more expressive range and capability.

Expanding on Existing Brand Identity and Reputation with the Chronoloop grid system

The "Chronoloop" system is a grid-based evolution based on an extrapolation of the event's primary graphic from 2023. This grid serves to both influence asset layouts, as well as a framework to build out the brand's primary visuals. The goal was to create a system which empowered our design team to produce assets that were expressive, impactful, and evolving throughout the course of the campaign, while still remaining on brand and visually cohesive.

Chronoloop Symbolism

The chronoloop grid is constructed for the primary purpose of allowing bold visual paths to be drawn over it. These paths, termed “Chronoloops,” are abstractions of the winding and unpredictable course of time and events that life flows on.

Variable Grid Density

The Chronoloop grid is formed using a subdivided cartesian grid, with a large circle circumscribed over the primary grid tile, and four smaller circles circumscribed over the subdivisions. This grid can be scaled larger or smaller relative to the size of the asset, allowing for variable levels of detail and boldness in visuals. Allowing the system to be naturally applied to both larger poster as well as smaller, more information-dense, applications.

Chronoloop Numbers

In addition to the abstract chronoloop paths, a full 0-9 numeric character set. Numbers constructed with the grid can be drawn at different widths, from 0.5 width of a tile, upwards of 4+ tiles wide. These numbers are most prominently used in the construction of the year: 2024. However, they may be used any time large, display-sized numbers are required. A countdown clock, for example.

Chronoloop asset structure influence

The chronoloop grid is intended to assert a gentle influence on the composition of assets. Imagery and copy do not conform strictly to the grid, but rather interact with the chronoloops in a dynamic nature.  The asset can be divided into sections using the grid lines, with a chronoloop drawn over the division.

Motion applications

One of the largest frustrations with the 2023 branding was motion. The construction of the 2023 graphic was not conducive to animating, and therefore animated assets largely relied on clunky stock effects, or time-consuming manual distortion of vectors. Both of which only exacerbated visual consistency issues across the campaign.

Motion was taken into consideration from the beginning. The chronoloop grid system not only lends itself naturally to expressive and diverse movement, but most importantly, it is easily animated. This helps the team save time, while also avoiding stock transition effects that could compromise the visual consistency of the brand.

A robust library of assets and tools to support the creation of assets for the event and utilizing the chronoloop grid system.

Along with the system itself, I created a toolkit for our design team to utilize that empowers everyone to easily jump in and create visually consistent and powerful assets.