Designing India’s First React Beach conference.
With every attempt I made to write this case study, I pulled myself back. I have been so contended after my very first experience at designing the coding tech conference, I felt lost of words to express my gratitude. But here I am finally making an attempt to sum up at least 10% of what I felt.
How did it all start?
Geekabyte organized their very first event, a React conference which aimed to cater 500+ attendees along with 25+ international speakers. It was indeed a hugeeee event.
Forming the React Design team
Designing, definitely cannot be done in isolation. Henceforth, I decided to collaborate. At first, I felt all over the place regarding the requirement for the event. The events I went before were design orientated, thus it felt impossible to visualise.
While in conferences, visuals played a vital part but so did the motion, animation and music. I was lucky enough to have friends who agreed to trust me in this and ended up doing great job!
Design Brief :
Designing collaterals and space for the event happening for the first time in India. It should attract people to attend the conference and also build a design language of its own. The vibe should be Indian and inspired by the venue, Goa.
Understanding the brief without hindering the brand image is a task. Our initial moodboard came from lot of research in what’s really happening in tech. ‘Hasura’ still is one of my favorite well designed company conveying Indian ness to fullest with its quirky illustrations.
Defining the brand identity system
The main task was to make the system universal. To make it look indian but at the same time not ruin the motive of an educational conference.
Before finalizing the identity we faced certain problems :
- Lacking knowledge about developers — We were ignorant about ReactJs altogether. Hence it was difficult to understand the target audience psyche.
- Make React India different but familiar — People should identify it as an event happening in India and not completely drift from the react logo. A glimpse of our very first discarded animation :
When React girl and the design turned into reality
I wouldn’t lie on the fact that creating the React girl happened naturally to me. There weren’t too many drafts. Fortunately it did click in the first attempt itself. But I did not want the React girl to have human qualities or color. Luckily, Geekabyte had given enough creative liberty and loved the React girl at first instance.
01. Namaste, the marketing strategy.
There were a lot of international speakers and attendees who were going to come to India for the first time. In order to grab attention and still have a sense of belonging we came up with the most stereotypical word ‘Namaste’ known to all regardless of the region they belong. It also signified the welcoming vibe which India has in general.
02. Event space design
Since Wizcraft were the event organizing partners, the sizes and checklist for the items were quite sorted. To make the design universal we made sure to stick to the elements and the identity system. It wasn’t possible to do recce but internet is a bane for us. Zillion calls across Berlin (organizer’s residency) and Wizcraft office made the picture clear.
It was indeed a challenge to design the wayfinding design without visiting the venue even once. But we decided, to bring consistency and also incorporate the dots in the signages and the standees.
03. Collateral design
Beach elements and the color palette was used everywhere. From the beach flags till the badges but we still needed something more. The best part was when we designed the t-shirt.
The only thought which ran across my mind was, what could be something which all the developers could relate to and still have the playful vibe. While I was looking for the inspiration online, poor internet connection made me realise it was right there in front of my eyes all this while. This made the no internet dinosaur part of the React family.
Lastly, it nearly felt impossible to sum up our process to design for the event. How could someone squeeze eight months of hard work just in an article right?. I tried my level best to explain. You can check the project on Behance as well :
https://www.behance.net/gallery/87312437/REACT-INDIA
Signing off from React India 2019
React India was definitely not possible without its people. A huge thanks to Geekabyte especially, Sahil and Manjula for trusting me into this. Supriya, the associate designer for always been on the same page. Ashish, the animator for not giving up on the redos. Shirish, to visualise the react india in a way I never could. Huge shoutout to Brij for making a track which synced so well with our aesthetics.
The volunteers for making sure everything goes right. Artnest for capturing the perfect essence of the event. And lastly, everyone else who attended the event and showered so much love on twitter. THANK YOU.
Link to the highlight video and react india track :
