Adobe 99U Conference
After a 6 year hiatus, Adobe decided to revive their 99U Conference: a day of talks by some of the most respected names in the design industry, with plenty of opportunity for connecting with other creatives. The Adobe team came to us with this year’s theme: the rapidly evolving technology of design, and the curiosity, skepticism, hopefulness, and uncertainty that comes with it. We set out to capture the iterative nature of working in today’s landscape, and the dual forces of fluidity and structure that make creative work possible.
Deliverables
- Brand Strategy
- Identity Design
- Swag
- Wayfinding
- Motion Design
Collaborators
- Adobe Design Team
- Tinsel, experiential design
- Caleb Coppock, motion design
- Megan Rainwater, photography
A longstanding force in the design community, 99U has been an important nucleus for dialogues around the creative process. With the conference’s focus on emerging technology’s effect on creative work, we began to think of creative inspiration as a moving, flowing force, like ink in water. Technology comes in to help us iterate on the flow, slicing up ideas and rearranging them to help us find new patterns.
We created a set of sliced-up marbled textures to be applied across the brand, playing on the reciprocal forces of flowing ideation and structural tools. This sliced pattern sets the rhythm for a strong grid system in signage, badges, and presentations. Adobe’s custom typefaces complement the lively patterns, with the italic serif reflecting their movement while providing a grounded feel.
In physical spaces, our patterns were sliced by the actual planes of the environment: stairs cut through the marbled texture, and a large lenticular piece carved the surface into a rhythmic mix of words and ink. In motion, the slivered slow flow of pigment reflects the iteration of ideas in mesmerizing waves.
