The word “conference” might send a shiver down one’s spine. Visions of dreary convention centers, stuffy corporate speakers, and lukewarm atrium coffee are enough to make even the most grizzled corporate soldiers run for the hills.
But what if I told you it didn’t have to be this way?
Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez-Palacio, the charming pair behind the Indiana-based graphic design firm UnderConsideration LLC and beloved design blog Brand New, are on a mission to reclaim conference culture and are succeeding with carefully considered flying colors. I had the privilege of attending their most recent event in October, the Brand New Conference in Salt Lake City, UT, which was infused with a familial sense of warmth and thoughtfulness.
The two-day affair was held at the glorious Abravanel Hall and featured an eclectic line-up of speakers from various corners of the design industry. Some standouts for me included Ragged Edge‘s Max Ottignon, Dhiya Choudary formerly of Magic Spoon, Violaine Orsoni and Jérémy Schneider of Studio Violaine & Jérémy, and Andy Pearson of Liquid Death. The multi-dimensional diversity of the panelists made for a rich presentation of perspectives and experiences for the 600 or so of us in the audience, with maestros Vit and Gomez-Palacio setting the tone in between.
Hand-dyed programs, T-shirts, and tote bags, a truck turned into an all-blue photo booth, a design book swap station, and a handful of design-related games peppering the lobby, were just a few of the inviting details infused into the conference. At the end of the event, I found myself reflecting just as much upon the display of Vit and Gomez-Palacio’s prowess as conference facilitators as I was the pearls of design wisdom shared by each of the speakers. I reached out to the duo afterward for more insights into their process and what went into the event. Vit and Gomez-Palacio’s thoughtful responses are below.
Every aspect of BNC24 felt so carefully considered and thoughtful. Can you shed some light on your thought process for these considerations? What’s your overarching mission for BNC, and what tone are you trying to set for attendees?
The overall goal is to create the experience we would like to have at someone else’s conference. We’ve been to our share of conferences, and have experienced things that work and things that don’t work, so we try to have as little discrepancy as possible in all of the various interactions our audience has, whether in person or online, all delivered with as much attention to detail and craft as possible.
We even choose our outfits based on each year’s color palette.
We are not perfect at it by any means, but we try to take care of as many things as possible. We want people to feel like they are entering a mini universe where all parts are connected and add up to the overall experience of being in the same building for more than ten hours each day for two days straight to make it more enjoyable and memorable. We even choose our outfits based on each year’s color palette, and our audience really appreciates how hard we commit to making each year distinct.
Our biggest fear is becoming repetitive because we have so many people that come year after year, we never want them to feel like they are getting the exact same experience over and over.
I know that this was the first year BNC didn’t have sponsors. Can you share a bit more about that decision? How did the conference feel different this year than in the past by not having sponsors?
First off, we have to say how appreciative we are of our past sponsors as they provided a financial boost that was integral to being able to develop and grow the conference, but our main struggle with having sponsors is that there were two very different experiences during the event: one inside the auditorium with the speakers, and one outside in the lobby with the sponsors, and the two were not particularly in sync. We felt that we could integrate those two experiences in a more memorable and relevant way for our audience.
We left a lot of money on the table—like, A LOT—but we are lucky that we have an audience that shows up for the event so we felt comfortable risking profit in favor of a more curated experience. The energy in the lobby this year was amazing and the one goal we had, based on feedback we have received over the years, was to provide more opportunities for attendees to interact with each other and have shared moments of joy and design nerdiness to make it easier to strike up new conversations.
We are also stubbornly independent and want to do things our own way with as little outside influence.
We are also stubbornly independent and want to do things our own way with as little outside influence as possible so this move puts us in a position where we are in total control of the results, good or bad. So far, first year, it’s been all good.
How do you curate the speakers for the conference? What do you hope to achieve when developing the presenter line-up?
We keep an ongoing list all year long of people that catch our attention, whether they were featured on Brand New (the blog), whether we ran unto their profile on LinkedIn, or whether doom scrolling on social media paid off and we saw someone’s work that we hadn’t seen before. Usually in November or December, we make an initial cut of that list to make sure we have diversity in every aspect of the word: race, gender, location, specialty, age, types of clients, styles of design, experience level, anything that will make it feel like each of the 20 speakers we have on stage has something different to offer.
We want to create opportunities. There is nothing we love more than to have a first-time speaker being as nervous as they’ve ever been right before presenting and then being awesome on stage.
Our goal is to portray the breadth of possibilities of what one can be and do in the branding industry. We don’t try to be all things to all audience members with every single speaker, but, as a sum of all the presentations, we want everyone to be able to take at least one thing back from each presenter. We try to also provide a mix of designers and firms people have heard of along with others that none or few have heard of. We are never looking only for seasoned speakers who have done this a million times; one because that’s just boring and, two, because they’ve already gotten enough opportunities. We want to create opportunities. There is nothing we love more than to have a first-time speaker being as nervous as they’ve ever been right before presenting and then being awesome on stage.
This isn’t Adobe Max or TED and we love that it NEVER feels like a super slick corporate event.
Now that BNC 2024 is in your rear-view mirror, what are you proudest of about this year’s conference?
Seeing people interact with all the weird stuff we came up with for the lobby to replace the sponsor booths and swag. We spent a lot of time thinking about what these things could be and how we could bring them to life within our budget and means, which means some things were rough around the edges but that’s part of what we love about doing this ourselves and with tight budgets… we are putting our skin in the game and we are not aiming to make everything pitch-perfect and flawless. This isn’t Adobe Max or TED and we love that it NEVER feels like a super slick corporate event.
Digressing though… our biggest pride every year is seeing new speakers get the opportunity to explore this side of themselves—folks like Eleazar Ruiz or Dhiya Choudary or the duos behind M — N Associates and Violaine & Jérémy—and realize how much they have to offer others. Equally fulfilling is the insane amount of work that our volunteers put in the day before the event and the days of the event. They leave with huge smiles on their faces and new friendships. It sounds cheesy but it really is quite something.
