300 seconds andy

300 Seconds Background: 300 seconds is a series of technology talks and events attempting to deal with the problem of underrepresentation of women at technology and digital conferences. It is based on the idea that ‘Standing up in front of an audience for half an hour can be daunting even to the seasoned pro. But five minutes – just 300 seconds – well, that’s not so hard, is it?’. By giving new speakers the opportunity to test material in front of an audience, they can help build both experience and confidence which can help speakers to move on the other events in the future. Previous events have been hosted by Facebook, the guardian, BBC and Mozilla.

Concise Brief: In light of the success of 300 seconds, and requests by others to franchise the model, refresh the identity to provide multiple colour options and a space to include the location or host.

Brief: We’d like to make the 300 Seconds logo and artwork available as a toolkit for partner events. We need a playbook and set of downloads, which should include The logo in a set of contrast colours (we’d like to move away from using only pink and offer maybe a choice of 4), Typography (font, size, positioning), Positioning of location text - we’d like to be able to add the name of the event alongside the logo, eg Salford or BBC. Concept: Iterate the existing logo to include a ‘location bar’, remove the pink option of colours and replace with 4 contrasting options. Try to to retain the speech theme of the original logo and create a format that will work for a variety of different events in the future.

Tone of Voice: Professional Technology Approachable

Andy Foster (collab with Martin O’Dea]

300 Seconds

OUGD603

Initial solution Our initial approach was to keep the existing logo and create a diagonal ‘location bar’ of the same colour that could accompany it. This would be long enough to allow any reasonable place name or company to be used. We have used the same angle of slant for the location bar, as well as the same typography as the logo ticket to ensure consistency. For this version, we have considered how the logo will animate, as the location bar would wipe sideways after the logo had appeared, giving the ident a sense of pacing.

Andy Foster (collab with Martin O’Dea]

300 Seconds

OUGD603

Feedback and Development After sending our initial design for feedback, we were asked to make a number of changes. The client was concerned that the colours were not dark enough to meet accesibility contrast standards (as it would be used heavily on web) and the event wanted to be as accessible as possible. They didn’t like the purple option, so we needed to look for a new swatch colour. Lastly, they felt that our solution for including the location element wasn’t working as it felt disconnected from the logo itself, not part of it. Due to this feedback, we had to go back to the drawing board and recnsider our approach.

We looked for new solutions to make the location element more integrated with logo. This required a new stage of development, as well as research into meeting WCAG AA accessibility standards (next board).

Andy Foster (collab with Martin O’Dea]

300 Seconds

OUGD603

Research into Accessibility Neither of us had really given thought to the importance of accessibility in our design, and this brief gave us an opportunity to learn about its importance and methods for ensuring that your design is as inclusive as possible for those with visual impairments, or even just in low contrast scenarios such as looking a phone in the sun.

We learned a lot of methods for making our work accessible. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) guidelines are very thorough in setting a standard for this online, and were the system we were told to test our colours against using an online contrast checker (bottom left). Design Studio UsTwo provide a handy extensive PDF called ‘Pixel Perfect Precission’ which was great research for this project, introducing us to methods of design to improve usability for as wide a range of users as possible.

Through this stage of research we were able to redesign the logo set with WCAG AA complient colours to meet the client’s expectations.

Andy Foster (collab with Martin O’Dea]

300 Seconds

OUGD603

Final Outcome Through experimenting with colour combinations and tweaking each one individually, we were able to find a set of colours which met (and even exceeded) visibility standards, as well as working together as a set and communicating the friendly tone of the event. After reconsidering our approach the logo, and testing new avenues of development, we settled on a new solution which altered the original logo slightly to allow the bar to sit beneath it and cut the speech icon out of negative space instead, allowing us to keep the speech theme without making it visually cluttered. Both us and the client were much happier with this solution, as the location element felt attached to the logo, and the rectangular shape is much more convenient for web use.

Andy Foster (collab with Martin O’Dea]

300 Seconds

OUGD603

Guidelines

Nexa Bold -

In giving the brand the flexibility to expand, we also needed to make sure that the brand would be used faithfully by defining colour, typography and usage.

To do this, we created a set of brand guidelines for the client and partner events which outlines the different elements of the logo and how they should be constructed. We have included CMYK, RGB and hex codes for colours to ensure consistency across all use cases. Typography usage has also been specified as well as examples of how these elements come together to form new sub-brands. While these would primarily sent out as a pdf we have stuck to a standard A-size to ensure that it can be easily printed in the future.

We purposely kept these documents as simple as possible to provide clear information

300 Seconds is a series of talks by and for the digital community.

Nexa light We believe that digital is better when we can learn from the brilliance of the many, not just the few.

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Andy Foster (collab with Martin O’Dea]

300 Seconds

OUGD603