Event: Duo Kickoff 2018

The former company Duo Security (now owned by Cisco) hosted an annual kickoff event for their employees to meet, align priorities, and prepare for the upcoming year.

Problem

Although this was not the first Kick Off event, in years prior they always occurred in Michigan. Employees from the offices in London, California, or Texas were familiar with travel to Ann Arbor. In 2018 Duo’s kickoff event happened in Austin, TX for the first time to highlight our employee growth in that office and offer variety in travel locations. This meant a large number of employees navigating a new city, and many employees meeting each other in-person for the first time. Way finding was a high priority.

We needed to create event branding that felt cohesive from moment to moment, including all-hands sessions, department breakout sessions, a sales team’s side event, and an after party. This cohesion and visual repetition would make the event memorable, and help employees remember the four priorities or “pillars” for our year ahead.

Solution

Logos and Slideshow

As noted, the content of our discussions revolved around four pillars for success in the upcoming year. After many drafts I landed upon four individual pieces that made one column, taking the place of the “i” in Kick Off. Perhaps it was on-the-nose to visualize a pillar when discussing our pillars as a group. However, given the need for repetition and memorability I did not want our employees to get lost in an abstract representation.

While the event needed its own branding, I didn’t want to deviate too far from our established brand identity. We had strong internal brand evangelists in our employees and wanted to build this event brand upon that capital. Utilizing our brand’s font and colors, I used pattern as the differentiation for this event. The main Duo brand relied heavily on solid shapes and Bauhaus style patterns. Using thinner line weights (pulled from the stacked ovals in the logo’s pillar) and repetition of patterns to create larger shapes, I was able to create something distinct, but complementary to our Duo brand.

Wayfinding

Our employees were very familiar with our brand’s distinct shade of green. We relied upon their familiarity with this color to function as a form of way finding. As they used GPS to navigate through the city towards Austin City Limits they would spot the green stair wrap, and the wall wrap as confirmation that they were in the right spot. The patterns on the stairs point them upwards, to suggest, “Come on up! The event is up here.”

Knowing that the wall wrap was visible to the public, and not just our employees, I made sure our websites’ address and our main logo (not just the event logo) were prominently featured. I also made sure the event logo and hashtag were at a height to be featured within employee selfies. By also including our team-building #WeAreDuo hashtag I was able to feature four white circles in the design, once again alluding to the four pillars. Wherever possible I repeated the use of groups of four shapes together.

Once up the stairs, we utilized a header over the auditorium doors for additional way finding. Next to the doors we featured a schedule for easy reference. Anyone can see it upon entering, or check it during bathroom or meal breaks.

Pillars

Given the focus from leadership upon our company’s pillars for the year it was fortunate there were literal pillars within the space! With four annual company pillars and eight literal pillars, I had two pillar wraps per goal. Before the Kick Off event I ran an employee survey about what the company values meant to them. I used quotes from the survey to create the pillar wraps, ensuring the quotes low enough so employees didn’t have to break their necks to read the words of their fellow teammates.

There’s no better hype person than internal evangelists. Here you’ll see each employee with their accompanying quote.

Swag

With such a large travel budget for this event, we opted for less employee swag. Three items were given. First were a set of custom Nike shoes designed by my design teammate, Steven Samuels. Second was a branded nametag and lanyard. And third was a newspaper called “The Heart of Duo” highlighting company culture, team accomplishments, and Duo lore. It was a great way for any new employees to catch up on inside jokes, but also for older employees to reminisce. I contributed to the Heart of Duo, but it was mainly done by my teammates Chelsea Lewis, and Hafsah Mijinyawa. They utilized the Kick Off event branding I’d established already for consistency.

Secondary Events

Sales Kick Off

The sales team at Duo had their own breakout event. It flew under the wings of the larger company Kick Off, but was larger than the breakout sessions of other departments. Continuing the event branding, I flipped the brand colors from Duo green as a primary color to Duo navy. The sales Kick Off happened after the main event already began, so employees did not need the green beacon as way finding. I also flipped the four ovals of the pillar to four overlapping rings mimicking camera aperture, fitting the sales team’s theme of “focus.”

Creating a similar set of assets as the main Duo Kick Off, the sales Kick Off logo was featured on custom navy presentation slides. The schedule wall became a photo wall. The sales mixer event had custom table wraps, and table numbers highlighting a circle grid pattern to reinforce the circles of the Focus logo.

After Party

After a long weekend of informational sessions employees blew off steam and bonded with coworkers at a beer garden afterparty. I created smaller wayfinding signs, but large wall wraps or headers were not needed given everyone traveled together from the last informational session to the beer garden.

Although many selfies were already taken throughout the event, I created a step-and-repeat photo background for even more photo opportunities. It created another place for a logo impression, and added an additional layer of shine to keep the hype going through the evening.