Hack Week Ephemera

EVENT & CULTURE PLANNING, SWAG DESIGN, MARKETING

Project Overview

Hack Week is an annual event that promotes innovation and design thinking and involves all teams from the Black Diamond product department. It evolved into various Hackathon events with different goals and themes scattered throughout the year. At times we would include clients, service and implementation, client advocates into the hack week teams.

My Contributions

When I joined Black Diamond Hack Week was just a thought in some minds, but I was quickly tapped to help build this culture event. At first my contributions mostly focused on branding and swag design but as the years progressed, my role evolved into more event planning and coordination, marketing, and video production as well as team involvement.

2015

The first Black Diamond Hack Week in 2015 we were just starting to build a program. The idea was to break into teams and work on a business-related idea during the week and present to a panel of judges at the end of the week. Then after presentations were complete we attended a scavenger hunt team building exercise at Jacksonville Beach. For the branding of this first event, I wanted to focus on the origin of the name of the product, Black Diamond, which is is the steepest toughest run in a ski area. I brought in rustic mountain imagery with a type treatment similar to ski badges.

Along with the event branding, I also participated and was in a Hack Week team. I contributed UI & UX design as well as video production. My teams project focused on creating a better employee resource portal. With that in mind I immediately thought of those late night infomercials where people are shown fumbling around yelling, "There's gotta be a better way!"

2016

The second Black Diamond Hack Week in 2016 we wanted to take it bigger. The product team had grown immensely and our technology stack was quickly evolving. We took things up a notch by hosting the final team event scavenger hunt at Disney's Epcot. For this graphic I wanted to bring in more illustrations centered around a product team menber up late hacking away as well as some Disney elements.

2017

The last Hack Week at Epcot was so much fun we decided to do it all over again. This time though I decided to step back in my responsibilities and let another designer take the graphic reigns. This designer was Tim Kirby. My role was to provided art direction and leadership in branding and marketing.

Graphic by: Tim Kirby, Art Direction by: Me

2018

After two years at Epcot we decided to switch it up a bit, this time at Universal Studios right down the street. For this design I researched old Hollywood imagery as well as graphics from past Universal Studios designs.

Along with the event branding, I also participated and was in a Hack Week team. I contributed UI & UX design as well as video production. My team's project focused on a new advisor native mobile app with business intelligence and chat features. For the video presentation I wanted to pull elements of that year's theme which was Universal Studios. I thought this scene from Jurassic Park was a perfect set-up.

2019

The last Hack Week I was involved with we decided to do something completely different than previous years. We wanted to stay local and embrace our Jacksonville Beach roots. For this design I wanted to bring in tiki elements with illustration and typography. I also produced, edited, and directed the trailer video to get the team excited.

Along with the event branding, I also participated and was in a Hack Week team. I contributed UI & UX design as well as video production. My team's project focused around an easier communication method between advisors and their clients along with quick account and trading updates.

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