Innovate Michigan Summit 2018
The Innovate Michigan Summit is conference that brings together economic experts and enthusiasts alike to share, learn, and create unique and innovative approaches to economic development and revitalization in the State of Michigan. This conference is hosted by the MSU EDA University Center for Regional Economic Innovation (REI). As a graphic designer and event coordinator for the MSU Center for Community and Economic Development (CCED) and a member of the REI team, I created and organized promo to coordinate the 2018 Innovate Michigan Summit.
The Program
Each year, the Innovate Michigan Summit conference showcases community and economic development programs across Michigan. So the theme of the program also changes every year. Building a theme for the 2018! Innovate Michigan Summit was my toughest challenge. After all, what images can you show of economic development and innovation except for before and after images of dilapidated structures and light bulbs? Our economic developers are working to build sustainable economies and improve community engagement. An image of structural material didn’t seem the do justice to the forward-moving growth that our presenters were aspiring to. This year we had a few agriculture-based projects, so it only seemed appropriate to go with Michigan apples.
Once the theme was decided, generating a color palette wasn’t too difficult. Our palette was full of warm, bright colors and to contrast this I concentrated the design to allow as much white space as I could. For typography, I followed MSU branding guidelines. However, I opted for a lighter weight of the Gotham font than previous years. This gave the overall appearance of the booklet a more modern feel.