I was appointed as the brand manager for STANDCON 2022 that was designated to be held from 17 to 19 June 2022. As a brand manager, I had to come up with a cohesive brand and event theme that best matches the vision of STANDCON.
Background
STANDCON is an annual flagship Cybersecurity Conference and Capture the Flag Competition organised by N0H4TS, Division Zero (Div0) for all tertiary students in Singapore. Div0-N0H4TS was looking out for volunteers to join the Overseers Office in managing community projects. Hence, I volunteered and STANDCON 2022 happened to be the first event that they tasked me on. As the only EXCO member equipped with design skills, I took up the challenge of branding the event and creating the media assets.
Highlights of STANDCON 2022:
- Main Stage - Conference talks by renowned experts who are from various Cybersecurity domains
- Workshop Track - Short training courses where participants can gain new skills or knowledge to develop their expertise, career, or research
- Capture the Flag - A cybersecurity competition that puts cyber defenders across all backgrounds and ages to test with specially curated challenges
Theming and Logo Design
Flexibility was encouraged in coming up with the refreshed brand and there were no strict requirements in the elements from STANDCON 2021 that must be retained. However, it was emphasized that participants of the event must be able to “climb to the highest peak” and achieve meaningful takeaways from the conference and workshops. Three keywords came to my mind, including ‘Peak’, ‘Learn’ and ‘Networking’. Additionally, I had to consider the target audience that the event logo will have to appeal to.
The above figure illustrates the factors that came to my mind during the brainstorming process. Together with my team, we envisioned for STANDCON 2022 to empower students at the tertiary level to explore their interests in the Cybersecurity domain, with N0H4TS providing a common platform for picking up essential skills and knowledge in Infocomm Security so that students can advance their pursuits on their own in this community. In other words, STANDCON 2022 was founded on the belief of,
“Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime”.
After brainstorming and rounds of edits, I came up with the logo set below.
There are two variations of the main logo to enable placement of the logo into different aspect ratio. The fisherman is a strong embodiment of STANDCON 2022’s belief, while the flag symbolizes that participants of the event will eventually reach the peak.
Following the main version of the logo, there is also the icon version. The triangle comprises of three pillars; i.e. Networking, Learn and Experience. The circle resembles two Koi fishes swimming towards each other, signifying the forging of bonds between our participants and the industry.
Storyboarding
STANDCON 2022 is a unique Cybersecurity Conference as the activities are built on top of a storyline, “Alas, something fishy has happened to Sang Nila Utama’s golden crown! The slippery underwater thief has made off to Atlantis with the royal treasure in its belly and it’s up to you to find it.". For the animated logo introduction, I wanted to depict the fisherman whom successfully mastered the skill of fishing and is ready to conquer the mission brief at STANDCON.
To realize this, we engaged a concept art designer, Nichole Bun to create the video animation of STANDCON’s logo. The animation turned out to be eye-catching with stunning illustrations.
Moving on, I used Canva software to create brochures for the event. Referencing to the main storyline, two separate narratives were written and designed for the Catch the Fishes activity as well as the Capture the Flag Competition. The mission for Catch the Fishes activity was such that participants would have to explore our virtual conference hall, i.e. Gather Town to collect fishes and redeem fish codes for exchange of prizes. On the other hand, the Capture the Flag seen participants having to venture around the town to pick up keys that can be used to unlock CTF challenges on our CTFd platform.
To top it all, I then translated the entire STANDCON storyboard onto a one-minute teaser video. However, the challenging part of the video was recording and trimming the tour in our Gather Town, coupled with the custom sound and action effects.
STANDCON Website
To expedite the development of the official website for STANDCON 2022, I used the Nicepage website builder software. With limited time, my primary goal was to ensure that the required information are succinctly displayed on the website while the design was secondary. Striking animations or visuals although encouraged to have, were not a necessity.
Social Media and EDMs
Marketing and publicity were crucial to reach out to our target audience effectively. Hence, I had to ensure that the visuals that I created for N0H4TS’s social media platforms were captivating and appealing. Canva had pre-existing templates that could be tweaked to suit STANDCON’s needs. There were two design styles which our social media went for, one was pixel-themed (i.e. for registration-related posts) while the latter was ocean-themed.
To post announcements quickly, above were some of the stories used for our Facebook and Instagram. Additionally, the N0H4TS public relations team also purchased Instagram Story ads to boost the visibility of the call-to-action links for registration. Registration posters of different sizes were also designed for various paid ads on social media.
Midway during registration, we also released more information about workshops, speakers and activities. In an example Instagram post below, delightful captions were used to tempt one’s interest for a workshop. Other similar captions also played with words such as “of-fish-shal”, “ex-squid-sit”, “oppor-tuna-ty” and “e-fish-ent”. There’s nothing more impressive than our creative team of organizers coming up with different ways to get your attention!
Brochure Guides
As mentioned, brochure guides were created via Canva. Guides simplified lengthy information for the conference and competition, including timeline, speakers, gameplay rules, etc. so that participants can easily comprehend with what was going to happen during the event. Moreover, they serve as a quick start reference for participants who do not have time to refer to the website or read their emails.
Extracts of information from our brochures were also translated into decals and placed at strategic locations in our Atlantis Gather Town. These one-stop information points were not only informative, but also decorative for the town.
Outcome
Together with a fully dedicated STANDCON organizing team and passionate volunteers, this year’s edition of STANDCON received overwhelming interest with sign up rates more than 200%, featuring speakers and instructors from around the world. This would not have been achieved without the strong support from our community, speakers and beloved sponsors! See this list for STANDCON 2022 credits.
For me, STANDCON 2022 was a journey of self-discovery and a valuable opportunity to learn more about branding and hone my design skills. While facing challenges along the way, I am grateful that I was supported by a very bonded organizing team and a public relations lead whom guided me throughout the six months of preparation. There’s nothing more that I could’ve asked for.
Check out more videos and brochures of STANDCON 2022 here:
