Leadership Connections 2018 Conference Identity
Leadership Connections™ is the premier conference for early childhood leaders, hosted each year in Wheeling, IL by the McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership at National Louis University.
Deliverables: Illustration, print design, web design, email, social
Playing off of the theme of “building brighter futures,” and in reference to the early childhood field and profession, tiny people interact with giant building blocks that make up a small world representative of the conference. The characters help each other across bridges and up ladders, and work together to supervise children.
The logomark for the McCormick Center, as well as the three icons for the center’s Whole Leadership Framework (pedagogical leadership, administrative leadership, and leadership essentials) are featured on the sides of the blocks. The McCormick Center’s brand colors were used to visually connect the theme of the conference to the center.
Process from left to right: initial rough sketch, first draft of the illustration, and the final illustration.
The website was built within the constraints of the Cvent CMS which hosted the conference information and registration. HTML & CSS were customized to fit the theme of the conference.
The program book with schedule information and maps was in pdf format and participants were directed to download it on their own and print if they needed a hard copy. Participants could also use the accompanying app to find the information they needed.
The identity was continued through the use of the same illustration style in the Leadership Connections emails that were sent out with Mailchimp.
A series of banners that continued the brand identity were used in conference emails to communicate different messages to the participants through the Cvent interface:
Generic email banner
Email banner used to confirm conference registration
Email banner for those who canceled or transferred their registration
The style of the conference and the general brand of the McCormick Center were used for social media promotion.
General Facebook posts promoting the conference.
Facebook posts promoting Leadership Connections speakers.