How we celebrated our first-in person company-wide event through design
Peek into our process — from tagline ideation to typography selection
In the summer of 2022, NerdWallet hosted our first company-wide get together since before the pandemic. Most of us had either never met in person or had only met a handful of times since we’d scattered across the world, so Nerds were really looking forward to the opportunity to connect IRL.
To set the right tone, our branding needed to build excitement in a live event while still celebrating our remote-first, normal lives. This is a look into our process in designing the event.
First, Logistics
Before we announced the event to all Nerds, a task force spent a lot of time finding the right dates, location, and programming. The People team worked diligently to secure a location to host over 500 Nerds and determined we’d be going to Las Vegas in mid-July!
Enter: The Brand Studio
After the People team’s legwork figuring out logistics, the Brand Studio team helped bring the event to life.
We knew the name of the event would be “NXNW,” short for Nerds by NerdWallet, after a company-wide vote by the Nerds; from there we began pulling references for mood boards and logo explorations. We wanted our logo to be able to stand on its own, no matter where subsequent NXNW events could take place.
Here’s a look at some very early logo exploration:
We ended up going with BST’s recommended logo: a bold, isometric type logo to set NXNW apart as its own unique brand moment. The year can be updated each year moving forward.
What’s Our Theme?
As we refined the logo, we started putting together moodboards, coming up with different themes to explore.
Knowing we wanted to celebrate in-person connection, we started to think through ideas related to community. Should the event identity speak to a festival, since the name was inspired by one? Should it speak to the location, with all the glitz, glam and over-the-topness of Las Vegas? What about doing something with the summer desert heat with vaporwave vibes? Maybe it should be more about celebrating our nerdiness, and the fact that we’re all finally meeting together for the first time.
We explored a bunch of directions and chose three to present to our partners on the People team.
“Nerd Together,” our first theme, was all about breaking free from our Zoom rectangles and the spark that happens when we get together IRL. With a little inspiration from SXSW’s origins as a meeting place for like-minded people at the forefront of tech, this theme reflected the core pillar of shared experiences with visual direction inspired by exclamations of our collective excitement, filled with colorful, expressive type.
We then partnered with our Content Strategy friends to brainstorm some taglines.
Think: Nerdy minds think alike; Time to nerd out; Nerds in motion; Where Nerds converge; The biggest Nerds, the best ideas; A gathering of Nerds; Nerds, united
The second theme, “Viva Las Vegas,” was, you guessed it, inspired by our location! The lights, the sights, the NERDS! The visual inspiration for this one was highly influenced by the rich visuals of the city, taking cues from the neon, the sparkles, and that feeling you only get from the Vegas Strip.
And our third and final theme proposed was “Heat Wave.” If there’s one thing we needed after being cooped up at home during a pandemic, it was sun! The event setting at the Virgin Hotel Beach Club promised exactly that: sun, fun, and nerdy events. The identity was vitamin D, rich with splashes of bright, wavy patterns and fresh, tropical colors.
So, which one did we choose? The winner was… Nerd Together! This theme really highlighted the most important part of the event: the celebration of togetherness.
Time for a Manifesto
Now that we had our logo and our theme, we could start refining the design, honing in on messaging, and thinking about other opportunities to brand the event and engage with the Nerds.
Working with our content strategy partners, we developed a manifesto that celebrated our theme and logo.
After years of interacting in tiny little Zoom boxes, it’s time to celebrate and break free from our digital rectangles. For our inaugural NXNW, we’re beyond excited to meet each other IRL for the first time. (Maybe ever!)
NXNW is all about being together — and the theme is reflected in our messaging and branding with repetition of the word itself, highlighting how we’ll be doing everything together: learning, swimming, hydrating, staying, sticking, and more.
Our visual language mixes bold, colorful typography with playful glyphs (a nod to the digital world we’re breaking out of!) to capture the spirit and energy of the event as we celebrate the joys of experiencing together.
This manifesto acted as our guiding light when making creative decisions and helped ensure everyone was on the same page as the branding came together.
Developing a Toolkit
Color
We wanted our palette to feel celebratory, bright, fun, energetic, and a little bit nerdy. Our final palette included almost every color in the ‘bow and gave us enough variety to work with for the many placements we’d need.
Typography
We decided on three bold, modern and fun typefaces. One brings in a little bit of a digital vibe, another brings a bit of a retro feel, and the other is bold, chunky and fun.
Glyphs
As a nod to digital applications, glyphs, an important part of our modular system, gave us another element to play around within the space. They add meaning and whimsy to the system as a whole.
Introducing… NXNW
When we officially announced NXNW in our monthly all-staff meeting, we had a simple invitation: “Let’s nerd out IRL together.” The teaser generated a lot of excitement for what was to come;from there we hit the ground running with branding the rest of the event.
Swag!
Of course, we set out to create swag! We knew we wanted to include a towel (to use at the hotel pool) and a water bottle (because it’s a million degrees in Vegas in the summer), but we also wanted to create additional items that could feel useful at the event or were cool enough for Nerds to use once they were home. In addition, we needed to consider the quality of items and packability, since most Nerds would be flying to and from the offsite.
When thinking about swag, we wanted the messaging to feel specific to each item. Our content strategists came up with quippy lines that spoke to each item’s use and fit perfectly in our system: [Blank] together.
After the RSVP deadline, a couple surprises were sent to each attending Nerd. We decided that luggage tags and passport holders would help fellow Nerds spot each other at the airport and hotel. And who doesn’t like getting surprises in the mail?
Our final swag bags included: an embroidered Baggu Duck Bag, a water bottle (Hydrate Together), a beach towel (Get Together, Sun Together, Lounge Together, Nerd Together), nerdy enamel pins (NXNW, Ditch Zoom Nerd Together, Nerds are Better Together, Nerds IRL), a keychain (Be Together), a luggage tag (Get Together), a passport holder (Travel Together), and more.
Experiential Design
We didn’t have the entire hotel reserved, but we wanted to make sure everyone felt like the Nerds were taking over. We had to consider the size of the hotel and make sure no one got lost looking for the NerdWallet programming while we were all staying in different buildings on the resort.
We decided on a handful of strategically placed printed and digital signage opportunities around the hotel to accomplish both goals.
For digital signage, we brought in our fun glyph and type animations to share multiple messages. For printed signage, we had standard placements like posters and leaderboards, and we also got to try something fun by branding the staircase leading up to the conference rooms and vinyl wall murals.
Slack and Instagram
Since communication is key, there were daily updates and reminders on Slack. We couldn’t let these messages look totally run-of-the-mill, so we created a sticker pack and added custom emojis to Slack and Instagram! These ended up being really fun for everyone to react with and kept Nerds engaged, especially within a remote environment.
Our internal Instagram account also had daily updates, including some that we designed in advance (stories and posts) and others made on the fly throughout the event using the emojis.
The Main Event!
So, how did all this work come together?
A few of us flew out to Vegas a couple days early to work with the People team and the events company on the ground, making sure we not only had everything we needed, but also that everything was set up as we’d envisioned it.
This time proved to be really useful as we got a lay of the land, oversaw the installation of printed signage and made some last minute changes to digital work.
The day everyone arrived, they picked up their name badges and swag bags after checking into the hotel. That night, we had a welcome shindig at one of the private pools, complete with food, drinks, a band and photo booth! We mingled, met new Nerds, met Nerds we had only met over Zoom and generally got settled in and ready for a fun couple of days!
The next day was packed with team time, a live recording of the Smart Money podcast (which related to Vegas and gambling, of course!), and a keynote speaker. After all that we went for a night out at Meow Wolf before either heading back to the hotel for the night or hitting the strip!
On our final day, we had a live version of our internal awards program and said our goodbyes.
So, what did we learn?
- It’s almost never too early to start a project of this size! We had just a few months and it flew by.
- Comping signage into mockups in the event space really helps grasp the scale of more unusually-sized assets.
- Keep the event space in mind as you decide on the color palette. You want the branding to stand out but not create “visual clutter” if your space is busy.
- Time spent before the event on the ground is super valuable. It was really helpful to see the entire space in person and make adjustments to digital signage design and printed signage placement for a good flow.
- Little extras like Slack and Instagram emojis go a long way to make everyone feel involved and make the event feel special.
- Swag should be something you want to take home with you when you leave your hotel room! For us, a carefully curated selection of high-quality swag items was the way to go.
Overall, the event was a success and it was great seeing all the creative come to life. And by approaching our branding and theme systematically and in an easy-to-update way, we’re ready to tackle our next company offsite!
Want to be part of a team that writes about stuff like this? Check out open roles in Design + User Experience at NerdWallet.
