Addressing a challenging time in tech

Productboard hosted many events in 2022, but the Product Excellence Summit is its flagsip event. This was its third year for the annual conference, but the first we’ve held in-person. After the pandemic, the world was finally opening up again and we wanted to establish our events as a way for people to connect with the best in the industry while addressing the challenging times.

Visualizing “Uncertainty”

Our team started ideation on the theme, “Embracing Uncertainty” six weeks before the event. At first, we were thinking of going with a crystal ball shattering, breaking apart in pieces that could create compelling light refractions and effects. The stakeholders wanted to see more ideas.

Pushing the concepts further

I helped brainstorm other imagery and visual patterns we could use by collaborating with another designer, making a word map, and generating some imagery through Midjourney and Dall•e to see if any interesting combinations arose. “Uncertainty” is a challenging concept to visualize in a compelling way, as it is unclear in its very nature and often brings discomfort. We wanted to focus on the feeling of it, rather than showing a person or character. We had three new ideas: the void, the maze, and smoke and mirrors. Rewo created the imagery from what we had brainstormed, and the stakeholders wanted to combine both the maze and smoke & mirrors.

Deeper into the maze

Once the direction was approved, I began creating the series of ads, emails, social images, post-event materials, and speaker and sponsor cards. We worked directly with speakers on various presentation decks. We also made collateral for the in-person event and space, including wayfinding posters, a step-and-repeat, escalator wraps, desk decals, a sales booth, lanyards, and swag, all consistent with the main theme imagery.

Main takeaways

This project was one of my favorites in how we collaborated as a four person team. We brainstormed together to develop a strong theme that carried out into each asset type. It was a lot of pressure in a short timeline, but the event came together beautifully and was met with great response from attendees and partners. In-person attendance was lower than expected; perhaps if we started earlier with developing the theme, we start advertising farther before the event.