Sometimes, when so much energy is focused on the event, it can be easy to forget events are a great opportunity to showcase your organisation as well.

MOTHandRUST find these three questions are useful to ask of any event design project:

What event design work do you need exactly?
Of course this seems obvious. However, we are often surprised at how often this is not as thought through well as it could be! Consider all the places the event visuals may exist at the beginning of the project when everyone is still fresh: site, emails, signage, name tags, podium, social, registration page, program, invitations, PowerPoint presentations, to name a few. Of course, it is often not possible to know exactly what will be required and things change. However, your future-self will be thankful that a comprehensive—and editable—list was at least made.

Are your designs flexible?
Event visuals need to extend across a variety of media while still being having a consistent look-and-feel. It must also exist in many shapes and sizes. A flexible format is one that can be scaled up to a large size or down to a small size. A design that works well on an invitation may not always work well across the event as a whole, particularly if it relies on imagery that can not be increased in size or seen properly from a distance.

Are your designs on-brand?
Some think their event must strictly follow their branding—no exceptions. Others think their branding is not necessary at all. We usually suggest the answer lies somewhere in between. You are showcasing your organisation, and as such its brand should be easily recognisable. However, if you follow the brand very strictly, there is a risk that all events will end up looking the same. Some flexibility is often necessary. Use the brand as a base and expand it out, with the help of a designer or your design team.

The photo above is a recent event designed for the Smith Family Awards Program for Excellence in Biomedical Research.

Photo credit: Erik Jacobs, Anthem Multimedia

This is a good question, and one our clients would often like to know. We always emphasise the importance of investing as much as you can in a logo for your institute or organisation. A good logo should serve you well over time. Often a lot of time. As the backbone of your brand, updating it can be more work than you think, as anything with your old logo would need to be changed as well.

I’d like to note that this process is not exactly the same for all designers, and what is outlined below is not comprehensive. Of course I am happy to chat about this further (and I often do!)

Research + Strategy
The design of the logo is always part of a wider brand strategy. The depth required varies tremendously. It can require days, months, or sometimes even years. The appropriate scope of work depends on the individual project. 

Starting with a set of questions, we discuss (and sometimes debate!) an organisation's essence: who it is, what it does and what it will deliver. We also examine such things as the target market and competitors. Once complete, our clients often comment on how valuable this clarity and insight is—despite how much they thought they understood their brand previously.

Concepting + Design
As a designer trying to put words to this phase, I realise how fascinating it is! And challenging. Clients can be surprised at how long this phase can take.

Inspiration can come from anywhere. Often visuals are sketched or found online. They are pieced together, taken apart, elaborated on, grouped, left for a few days, brainstormed, and worked on again and again to form logo concepts. The best concepts are grouped into design directions and developed further. Some clients think that the first design round is simply a presentation of all the work done to date, but this is not the case! We only present the most successful design directions.

Crucially, this phase is also very much guided by the Brief + Strategy phase listed above.

There are usually at least four design rounds, more depending on the project scope. So that they can be prepared, we always tell our clients that one of the biggest delays is the amount of time it takes to get feedback after each round.

Files + Guidelines
The final logo is delivered in various file formats and sizes. If you require any additional file format in the future, we are happy to provide this free of charge. 

A brand guidelines document is provided that sums up the brand work. This helps anyone using the logo, or any other brand elements, to prepare high impact materials that are consistent, whether it is a PowerPoint document or an email newsletter. The brand guidelines can be anywhere from one page to dozens, depending once again on the project scope.

Above are examples of a few of the logos we have designed recently for various scientific organisations.

1.
Medical illustration is a rather niche field, with an estimated 2,000 trained practitioners worldwide.

2.
The majority of medical illustrators in the profession have a master's degree from an accredited two-year graduate program in medical illustration, of which there are only four in North America.

3.
The first school of medical illustration was formed in 1911 at Johns Hopkins University.

4.
Some medical illustrators are authors and co-authors of textbooks or articles in which they've made major contributions to the content.

5.
In the past, the majority of medical illustrations were produced for professional use, whereas now there is a growing need for illustrations aimed at the lay public, in order for them to understand the state of their health and medical options.

6.
Attorneys use medical illustration to clarify complex medical information for judges and juries in personal injury and medical malpractice cases.

7.
Medical illustration created for instruction (surgery, anatomy, obstetrics and medicinal plants) first appeared in Hellenic Alexandria during the 4th century BC or early 3rd century BC on individual sheets of papyrus.

8.
Leonardo da Vinci pursued his own anatomy book, and pioneered the use of cross sections and exploded views.

9.
De humani corporis fabrica (The Fabric of the Human Body) of 1543 is probably the most well known book of anatomy. It profoundly changed medical training, anatomical knowledge, and artistic representations of the body, an influence that has persisted over the centuries.

10.
Here at MOTHandRUST, we do create scientific illustrations (seen above) and we can work with specific medical illustrators when required.

Brigitte Reiffenstuel’s award-winning costumes have been seen on stages all over the world for the past twenty years, from the MET in New York to London’s Royal Opera House to La Scala Milan.

Though she is very well-known in the realm of opera, her career continues to expand into the wider fields such as film, theatre, and advertising. She wanted her new site to show this. We were introduced to Brigitte by our long term friend and client, London set designer, Michael Levine. 

Her site's key audience includes production companies and directors. Being very busy, they tend to very quickly skim through portfolio sites. Therefore, the overall impression of a scrolling page was important for the new site, as was effective storytelling with images rather than text.

Our new site for Brigitte scales all images to the optimum size for the viewer's device, so image zooms are not required. Both portrait and landscape formats are portrayed equally well. The site features an easy, flexible layout system where she can upload, test, rearrange and position all images until they are curated for maximum impact and storytelling. This is boosted by the use of complementary background colours for each project.

Finally, there is quite a bit about Brigitte on the web and Google search results vary widely; examples of her work may be dated, and so on. With search engine optimisation, a Google search will lead users directly to her site more frequently, meaning she has more control over how she is portrayed online.

brigittereiffenstuel.com 

The Center for Brains, Minds and Machines (CBMM) is a multi-institutional collaboration headquartered at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT with managing partners at Harvard University. It aims to understand intelligence, how the brain produces intelligence and how we may be able to replicate it in machines—arguably one of the greatest challenges in science and technology.
 
As a flagship program of American's National Science Foundation, they needed a new identity that was more modern, professional and cutting edge. A particular problem with the existing logo was that many did not recognize that it was in fact a brain.

As is often the case with our science collaborations, complex and often abstract concepts can be a challenge to visualise. One of the tools we use is a series of questions that we have developed over the years that we find essential to get to the heart of a brand.

In this case, it was this question that provided a key: “If one could communicate one single message about the CMBB identity, it would be?”

The answer was: “The CBMM brings together computer scientists, cognitive scientists, and neuroscientists to create a new field—the Science and Engineering of Intelligence.” 

This is also what makes the CBMM different. 

During our design phase, we discovered that dotted circles create new patterns where they intersect. The three circles in the new logo represent the three types of science mentioned above, that come together to create the new field of the Science and Engineering of Intelligence. Where the types of science come together and intersect, new patterns of understanding are created.

See more here.