Danielle Vernelson
Events
Case Study Highspot 2023 Spark & Sales Enablement PRO EMEA Event
Goal of the project: Represent the Highspot Spark and Sales Enablement PRO brands at an event based in London, with the cost-savings of a common mainstage design.
Created while working at: Highspot
Role: Art Director & Graphic Designer
Project Details Back-to-Back Events
Introduction
Highspot’s twice-yearly Spark events are focused on getting customers excited about the product’s new features, and all of its capabilities. Sales Enablement PRO on the other hand, is a non-branded event for all sales enablement practitioners. The look and feel for each is quite different. So, when I was tasked with creating a main-stage backdrop that would work for both brands for events that happened on back-to-back days to save on cost, I knew it would be an interesting challenge.
Seemingly Clashing Styles
These are the main stage backdrops from 2022, to illustrate how distinctly different each brand looked:
Before:
Main stage, Sales Enablement PRO 2022:
Before:
Main stage, Spark 2022:
My first step was to figure out what elements the brands did have in common: both brands used the same fonts, both brands used blues in their color palettes (although different color blues), and both brands sometimes used color overlays on city imagery. And, both brands used diagonal graphics (although different diagonal graphics).
I realized that the solution should involve city imagery with a color overlay. And, I would need to design a new PowerPoint deck for Sales Enablement PRO to go with the new backdrop.
Exploration
These are 3 of the 4 explorations I made on the way to choosing the final solution. Note that the two raised panels with gray below them represent the projected slides. The slides you see on the screens are for the Sales Enablement PRO brand:
It felt a little bit like Goldilocks and the 3 bears. The first 3 options weren’t quite right for the reasons stated above, but the fourth option—with a lighter color overlay for the printed panels, and darker slides—was just right.
Here's how Option 4 would end up looking on each day:
After, Day 1:
Main Stage backdrop with the Sales Enablement PRO slides
After, Day 2:
Main Stage backdrop with Spark slides
The Other Event Graphics
Due to the breadth of work needed for both events, 2 other designers were brought in, and I art-directed their work to make sure it was on-brand and high-quality. Some of the work I did as an art director included:
- Making sure a variety of photography was used, rather than using the same photos on multiple assets.
- Keep an eye on the program inside spread: making sure the agenda was clean, accurate, and a large enough font size.
- Making sure the floorplan map was easy to read and also had a clean appearance.
- Checking all typography and logo elements.
- Checking color and making sure everything was submitted in CMYK.
The Final Results for Day 1:
Here are a few of the event graphics created for the Sales Enablement PRO event. The first two are large printed signs, followed by a program.
The Final Results for Day 2:
Here are a few of the event graphics created for the Spark event. The first two are signs, followed by a program.
Results
The events were a huge success, and the printed graphics looked great. I loved working with my teammates to make each design come to life. And, the common backdrop for SE PRO and Spark worked really well for both brands.