Overview

About the project

Design the brand identity for Hack Chicago, the first of Hack Club's flagship high school hackathons.

Background

Since co-founding my high school's Hack Club chapter and spearheading new initiatives and events like Mason Hack Camp and CincyHacks, I had always been the go-to for logo and flyer designs. I was approached by Hack Club founder Zach Latta to design the branding for Hack Chicago and set the precedent for the rest of the series of Hack Club's flagship hackathons.

My role: Brand Identity, Graphic Design

Timeline: 1 week, March 2018

Tools: Adobe Illustrator

Research & Strategy

What does the brand need?

After talking to the event organizers about their vision for the brand and conducting online research on hackathon branding, I decided to guide my design with the following requirements.

  1. Adaptable for future events
    Hack Club envisioned Hack Chicago to continue as a series of Hack hackathons in cities throughout the midwest. With this in mind, I wanted to create a distinct style to unify the various events hosted in different cities and remain easily adaptable for different cities for future events. However, I still wanted to highlight the unique elements of each particular city.
  2. Unique to Chicago
    I wanted to incorporate some essence of Chicago, a city known for it's resilience and innovative architecture as it was rebuilt from the ground up after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
  3. Welcoming for new students and high schoolers
    As a high school hackathon, the majority of attendees would be fairly new to coding, and Hack Chicago would likely be the students' first hackathon experience. Additionally, with the general lack of hackathons in the Midwest (especially compared to the Bay Area), the majority of students would not know what a hackathon is, and would potentially think of 'hacking' as malicious and illicit. The overall brand needed to make hackathons seem positive, fun, and welcoming to students of all backgrounds and experience levels. Ultimately, this was not only a task to craft the image of Hack Chicago, but also technology as a whole for beginners.
  4. Unlike other hackathons
    I did not want the brand to scream technology with sharp geometric shapes or brackets and slashes common to collegiate hackathon branding, as these images could intimidate curious first-time hackers. I especially wanted to avoid the classic hexagon logo common throughout other collegiate MLH hackathons. Hack Chicago needed to be distinct as a new kind of hackathon. I wanted to make the brand seem fun and inviting to defy the negative stereotypes about technology being difficult and boring.
Early Designs

Concept Explorations

Experiment 1: Stamps

Justification

  • Preserves the collectible feeling of MLH's hexagonal hackathon series.
  • Would make a really cool sticker.
  • Easy to highlight unique elements of the particular city.

Concerns

  • Doesn't seem welcoming or fun.
  • Although it would make for a good sticker, the stamp theme would be difficult to maintain using the logo for other purposes like on the website or t-shirts.
Experiment 2: Location Pins

Justification

  • Straightforward and welcoming with bright colors and bold type.
  • Easily build unity between cities with the location pin C.

Concerns

  • Oversimplified and too subtle.
  • Lacks elements unique to Chicago.
Result

Final Logo

After several more iterations and rounds of feedback from the Hack Chicago team, this is the final version of the logo that I ended up with.

Style guide
The logo in action!
Continuation

Future Events

With the success of Hack Chicago, we hosted Hack Cincinnati, the second event in the series in July 2019.

I used an orange and blue theme like Cincinnati's MLS team FC Cincinnati. I also added a flying pig to hold the Hack Club flag, an iconic Cincinnati symbol.


Check out my designs live: Hack Chicago 2018 and Hack Cincinnati 2019, or learn more about Hack Club.