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Bankjoy was interested in hosting its first ever client conference in Napa, CA with a goal of increasing customer loyalty and improving usage of the platform, differentiate itself from other industry events, and to provide attendees with an opportunity to "Learn, Connect, and Have Fun."
Once the Napa Valley location and Silverado Resort venue were selected, I began to explore different approaches to the name of the conference that would distinguish it from other industry events.
The team explored several options before landing on "Elevate" for the name of the conference, with the goal of elevating our client's users through knowledge of our platform, and ultimately empowering the attendees to elevate their own communities. Additionally, the name also evoked the mountainous Napa Valley region, known for its unique "terroir" and variable elevation.
I thenbegan gathering inspiration of different ways this concept could be visualized, eventually landing on a motif based around Napa's topography, and topographic lines.
Now with a visual direction in mind, I looked to the Bankjoy color palette to pull colors that evoked the colors of wine, highlighting shades of Amethyst, Coral, Indigo, and Deep Indigo from the palette, creating mockups around key pieces of event collateral, including presentations, name tags, event t-shirts, and other digital collateral such as the event landing page and email communications.
Following feedback to for the visuals to be more distinct from the parent Bankjoy branding, I pushed the color palette even more into tones of wine and vineyards, adding complementary shades of sage and olive green to provide a striking contrast with the rich purple hues.
With approval for the creative direction and mockups, I next built out comprehensive design guidelines to ensure strong consistency across all pieces of event collateral, including a bespoke logo mark/emblem, context around the key design elements of the theme, and "Core Values" the theme should communicate to all attendees.
One of the first deliverables for the event was to create a video "teaser" that would reflect the event theme, benefits, and overall tonality to prospective attendees. The video itself was also embedded on the event landing page to drive enthusiasm and awareness for the event.
For additional platform support for the event, as well as pre-event promotions, we partnered with a vendor that provided a registration workflow, as well as key tools for the live event, such as a dedicated mobile app, badge printing, registration, and event feedback tools.
Recognizing the need for bespoke, unique imagery that bridged the concepts of "digital banking" with "Napa/wine/winemaking," I began exploring options for using Generative AI imagery. Stock imagery was insufficient, and custom-shot photography was out of budget and scope, which opened up an opportunity to leverage custom AI imagery that could integrate into the existing design theme.
I explored a few solutions, ultimately landing on a combination of ChatGPT4 and Midjourney to create high-resolution, photorealistic imagery.
After determining a successful prompting strategy to create consistent, thematic imagery, I then generated custom images for each presentation deck to align with the each topic, as well as creating template slide content to ensure a consistent, professional, and accessible look/feel for all the presentations.
With the event creative direction, theme, and infrastructure in place, we began to roll out promotional content to drive event registrations to the client base, using a series of tailored emails, as well as tactical social media posts.
For the live event, I created artwork and applied the UI design for the event app, as well as created thematic t-shirts to further complement the overall design theme.
For each attendee, I created a thematic "goodie bag" that included a branded wine bottle bag, branded wine bottle openers, Bankjoy branded wireless chargers, Bankjoy mints, an an "Elevate 2024" t-shirt. Unlike traditional industry event shirts, I utilized tri-blend material for the shirts and created versions in both mens and women's styles, with a goal to "elevate" the quality of the shirts to encourage re-wearability.
The event itself was a huge success, reflected by overwhelmingly positive feedback from the attendees received via the event app and through follow-up surveys, achieving a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 32.14%, reflecting strong client satisfaction and loyalty driven by a thoughtfully crafted event experience.
Finally, following the event, I created a video slideshow to recap the highlights from the conference.
I'm an accomplished, multi-faceted creative director and senior designer with in-depth and extensive experience in design ideating, concepting, UI/UX, and digital design.
