by Areti Vassou
In designing the brand identity for Asia’s first flagship WordCamp #WCAsia, the team understood the importance of starting right; the identity had to be able to represent the unique diversity of Asia, considering that each Asian country has its own distinct culture, language, writing system and colours.
Let’s walk you through the amazing journey of designing the brand identity for Asia’s first flagship WordCamp #WCAsia
WordCamp Asia Logo #WCAsia
It is, by all means, not an easy task! In short, WordCamp Asia’s brand identity must be:
- Distinct and unique from other regional, flagship, and local WordCamps
- Represent Asia as a whole, not just a particular sub-region or country
- Can be easily customized to reflect the current host city (in this case, Bangkok)
- Consider and respect WordCamp and WordPress chapter meetup logo guidelines
The design approach by the team is to separate the identity into 2 parts; logomark, and logotype + key visual.
- WordCamp Asia Logomark – The logomark will be the “constant” part of the identity. This logomark was intended to create brand awareness, keep consistency and continuity of WordCamp Asia going forward. Therefore, it had to be simple, memorable, and versatile.
- WordCamp Asia 2020 Logotype & Key Visual – This was the “customizable” part of the identity. It was intended to be refreshed every year, and also reflect the unique flavor, attractiveness, and style for the current host city. (For WordCamp Asia 2020, the theme will be about the city of Bangkok.)
With that decided, the design team started to work!
WordCamp Asia Logo Design
WordCamp Asia’s design team consists of three members: Boy, the team lead, is a graphic designer from Thailand. Junko is a web designer and photographer from Japan. The last team member is Daiya, a digital marketer from Hong Kong. One of the key tasks for the team was to design a brand identity that will set the tone for WordCamp Asia going forward.
How was the #WCAsia Logomark Designed
After defining the key messages that need to be conveyed through the logo, the design team brainstormed together and experimented with various ideas: maps element, sunrise, combinations of maps and letters, fabric patterns, languages, and even 4 seasons in Asia.
The design team then decided to bring several of these reiterations to the rest of the organizers and the majority voted for Junko’s idea of “Circle and bridge with ‘A’ motif (A from Asia). The organizers also gave some valuable feedback to the design team.
A is the first letter of the alphabet and triangle shape is similar to ‘人’ in Chinese that means ‘people’, and it represents the ‘camping tent’ too, which suits the name of WordCamp. That was the perfect element to be included in the logo!
The logomark iterations went on and it finally found the sweet spot for communicating the team’s initial idea mixed with Daiya’s idea about chaos, variety, and diversity in Asia that the team agreed.
The reiteration process was done numerous times over a few weeks, but the process is summarized here by Boy, the design team lead:
Designing 2020 Key Visual and Logotype
After the logomark was finalized, the design team started on the next part of the identity: the key visual and logotype, which also included the colour scheme.
Since Boy (the team lead) is from Thailand and is currently residing in Bangkok, the design team endorsed Boy to be in charge of designing the key visual that has and reflects the attractiveness, unique flavor, and appeal of Bangkok.
Boy first started with defining the colour scheme, as colour is an important element that dictates the overall mood of a design. His approach was systematic, as you can see from the steps that he described below:
- Read more about Kobayashi’s Colour Image Scale
- Read more about Thaitone colours
Most of the upcoming WordCamps limit the colours to only 2 colours, but as this Asia’s first WordCamp, the design team felt that they could have more colours to make it more attractive and show more of Asia’s diversity.
For the primary colour, RED was chosen by the team, as red is a colour of passion (it’s hot and spicy, just like Thai weather and cuisine) which suits Bangkok and Asia vibes perfectly!
The colours were applied to the #WCAsia logomark, and here it was the result:
The Final #WCAsia Logo
As a final touch, a traditional Thai garland pattern was added as a background to further emphasize Bangkok’s flavor.
As to the font type, the design team decided to use ‘Rubik‘ font for Logotype and ‘Roboto Slab‘ font for body text.
Behold, the final logo for the first flagship WordCamp in Asia!
Bonus: Logo Rank Score
The logo also received an overall high score of 95 (!!) from Logo Rank, which is an AI system that evaluates logo based on uniqueness, legibility, and colour contrast.
A huge round of applause to the design team members, Boy, Junko, and Daiya! ٩(^ᴗ^)۶
Meet the Design Team
Boy Witthaya is a graphic designer who can code. He’s ♥ about making design, hand-crafted websites and brands better. Connecting people and technology. Co-organising meetups and WordCamps in Bangkok. Contribute to Make WordPress #design and #docs team.
Thailand / @ibdz / ibdz.me
Junko Nukaga works on the WordPress Community Team. She was the lead organizer of WordCamp Kansai 2014 and the co-organizer of WordCamp Ogijima 2018. She lives on an island called Ogijima in Japan and runs a private library. Her profession is a web designer and photographer.
Japan / @nukaga / nukagajunko.com nuuno.net
Daiya Morita is a digital marketer and occasional developer working with WordPress sites. He was involved in organizing WordCamp Hong Kong 2019.
See you soon in WordCamp Asia 2020
