Announced Oct. 16, 2023 by Armin No Comments on 2023 Brand New Conference: Summary, Sights, and Videos
Here is this year’s breakdown of the 16 sessions of the 2023 Brand New Conference that took place this past September 21 – 22 in Chicago, IL, and which was awesome. (If you are looking at this in an RSS reader head on over to the real thing, too much heavy formatting). This is a very long post with a photo of each speaker, very brief summaries, and a preview of their video/session, so give it a good time to load. A few other things worth bullet-pointing:
- Videos for purchase are now available.
- Videos for the 2016 Brand New Conference are now available for free; for the 2017 conference are now reduced to $4; and for the 2023 conference are now reduced to $8.
- A lot more photos from the event have been posted in this Flickr album.
- Registration is now open for the 2024 Brand New Conference in Salt Lake City, UT, on October 10 – 11.
- This year’s identity case study coming in a couple of weeks.
All event photos by Nathaniel Smith. (On the grid images below you can click to open a bigger version.)
Day 1: Registration
Day 1: Morning Welcome and Materials Behind-the-scenes
Day 1: Early Morning Speakers
Pali Palavathanan / TEMPLO
An insight into the role his childhood played in developing a professional path devoted to designing for climate change, human rights and justice, education, anti-corruption, regeneration, and diversity and inclusion causes.
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Danny Pemberton / Love and Money
A head-spinning and animated-GIF-filled thesis to help us see brands as memes which are living, breathing, iterative ideas as a way to shift our approach from taking total control of a brand to giving brands the best chance of replicating without us.
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Day 1: Morning Break
Day 1: Late Morning Speakers
Emunah Winer & Margaret Kerr-Jarrett / Nihilo
A raw and honest look at two outsiders — no traditional design education or agency experience — as they try (and, spoiler, succeed) at making a name for themselves and their work all while prevailing over preconceptions about what Orthodox Jewish women can or can’t do.
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Reggie Snowden / Ghost Note Agency
An ode to the principles that drive Ghost Note Agency — an agency that understands and values the stories of underrepresented communities through a team that represents diverse experiences — and how that vibe must be protected at all times, leading to meaningful and unique work.
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Day 1: Early Afternoon Speakers
Jo Roca / For The People
An introspection into what it means to be an outsider, an immigrant, (an invader?), in life and in business and how that feeling of inadequacy lead to a deeper understanding of place branding: that a place is made every day and that its success lies in societal change first and foremost, not its brand.
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Day 1: 15-minute Flings
Candace Solola / SO Dsgn
An inside peek at a practice that blends branding and product design through three main principles: pursuing one’s passion, partnering with the right people, and trusting the process.
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Abe Zieleniec / Resident Home
A deep dive from a proud mattress salesman — a playful take on his in-house daytime job — into the brand identity and packaging design for Blakesville Creamery and its many goat illustrations. Bonus, an endorsement to mood boards.
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Julia Cho & Denny Liu / Studio Aperitif
A glimpse at a studio practicing interior design and branding showcasing their similarities and how they inform each other whether it be for clients in the hospitality or the food and beverage industries as good taste (and a good partnership) knows no boundaries.
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Day 1: Afternoon Break
Day 1: Late Afternoon Speakers
Thomas Kurppa / Kurppa Hosk
A retrospective on how two early discoveries — Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode (their music, packaging, and attitude) — informed a lifelong pursuit to blend music and with another passion, design, and how that has manifested in his client work as well as in his experimental exercises where the line is often blurred.
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Shar Biggers / Saleah
An impassioned reality check on the challenges faced by people of color across every step of their life, from education to founding their own businesses, accompanied by a selection of case studies that show how Shar and her team are empowering owners with meaningful branding.
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Day 1: Summary
Day 2: Early-morning Vibes
Day 2: Brand New Summary
The Brand New Summary — a look back at the most interesting stories from Brand New, the blog, in the last 12 months — was back this year, touching on ugly logos, mascots, AI, and more, all leading up to the biggest story of the year so far.
Day 2: Early Morning Speakers
Diego Guevara / NIKE
A contagiously optimistic call to action to find and nurture our own communities — whether that be in school, at work, or even in conferences like Brand New — along with a reminder that we have a voice and with voice comes great responsibility: our work should be diverse, accessible, equitable, sustainable.
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Ade Chong / Studio Chong
A celebration of being a small studio and embracing the flexibility (and challenges) that come with it as well as a rare praise for the constraints and restrictions we face constantly across projects and using them to find the limits and push them all while creating brands that love people and come across as genuinely caring about their audience.
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Day 2: Late Morning Speakers
Bijan Berahimi / FISK
A series of questions presented to challenge our preconceptions about branding (and life) based on an upbringing as an Iranian American immigrant supported by a series of insights like, among others, embracing our heritage, looking high and low for inspiration, and using our skills for the things we believe in.
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Katrina Romulo / Independent
A charming and honest acknowledgment of being young, making mistakes, learning on the job, and modeling parental advice based on one’s own experiences. This presentation also featured one of the best quotes from one of the unlikeliest of sources as a way of encouraging those that don’t yet fully believe in themselves or their potential.
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Day 2: Early Afternoon Speaker
Mark Kingsley / Malcontent
A discerning conversation stemming from the publication of his new book, “Universal Principles of Branding”, on various aspects of branding, from its definition to its purpose to its (mis)understanding, while broaching other subjects as myriad as airlines, philosophy, and AI.
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Day 2: 15-minute Flings
Kristin Lueke / Field of Practice
A poetic take on how strategy is key in developing responsive, responsible, and culturally-relevant design work, explained through the lens of an exercise learned from a tax accountant — The Core Values exercise — in order to learn what is important to people.
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Matt Tanaka / Stout Collective
A first-hand account of a project to redesign a non-alcoholic beer brand where the outcome was not the desired one but that makes a case for the reframing and rethinking of failure and rejection as something positive.
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Stephanie Falaschetti / Independent
A look at the life and times of a young freelancer and what it takes to maintain a healthy lifestyle while enjoying the freedom to work with selected clients and aiming to make one kick-ass project a year like the YouTube Shorts packaging design for a trio of creators.
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Day 2: Late Afternoon Speakers
Taamrat Amaize / COLLINS
A tribute to tension as a conduit to develop strategies that uncover novel and exciting approaches to lay the groundwork for design and communications that help transform companies not from A to B but from A to A-plus as exemplified by the case study for Equinox.
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Zipeng Zhu / Dazzle Studio
A razzling and dazzling yet sobering reflection of an evolving career and an introspection to recuperate the joy for the work being done as an outlet for both self-expression and client satisfaction all presented with good humor, authentic warmth, and, of course, dizzying motion.
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Day 2: Summary
Day 2: After-party
Attendee Impressions
Hit refresh on your browser if they don’t show up at first. Most of the Instagram activity this year happened through Stories and we tried to capture as many as possible in a highlight (but there is a limit of how many you can include).
BNConf 2024: Salt Lake City, UT
The 2024 Brand New Conference is scheduled for October 10 – 11 at Abravanell Hall. Pre-sale tickets available now. See you there?
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