Theme
Context
We the millennials are living in the age of ubiquitous technological evolvements. The digital technology use has both positive and negative impacts; it makes people get connected anywhere and anytime, and also causes distraction and anxiety; the online information online cultivates diverse interests, and also causes a lack of collective value that unites people together. Therefore, through this TEDx event, we want to address the issues and concerns that young people may have today, in order to help them find the meaning and purpose of their lives.
References:
1. Davenport/Kirby, Only Human Needs Apply (Harpers, 2016)
2. James Bridle, New Dark Age (Verso, 2018)
3. Social Anxiety in the Digital Age
4. Workers Feel More Stress and Anxiety Than Ever Before
Interview
After identifying the general social problems, we started a round of internal interview within our organizing team to narrow down the specific topics we want to choose.
Insights
Based on the in-person interview and discussion result, we find several areas in which young people want to seek answers. Our public relation team started their work to reach out to speakers that fit in these areas.
Final TEDx Talks
Ten Lessons for A Successful Career – Dick Lo
Stick to Your Interests – Yanan Han
Travel Together – Lily Yang
Waiting for One Day that Makes Me Cry – Qiang Chen
Summary
After the ideation and interview, the theme of TEDxGDUT event is finalized into one powerful and memorable word: seek.
SEEK
We are living in an age where everything is rapidly changing. Humans benefit from this but sometimes feel overwhelmed and lost. We the young people need to seek the purpose of our lives, and become spiritually stronger selves.
Video
Objective
I am responsible for the video production. Apple’s intro videos for their events are impressive, which bring up the values of Apple and sometimes give some hints of the upcoming event. I want our intro video can work similarly, set the mood and bring it up!
Plus, video is a powerful media to spread ideas, particularly montage videos, as they can include rich information. The intro/trailer video is effective to advertise our conference on social media.
Production
The intro video aims to promote our TEDx conference topics – motivation, personal development, and social responsibility.
To select the video clips, I chose some from my 2018 movie catalog and also picked some news clips. The final production starts with some struggles in life, then people found hope and possibilities, and ends by being motivated and bravely moving on. The contents include the speech against Gun Violence and Mass Shootings, emission of SpaceX, Bolt’s last run and many more.
The video was presented as the beginning of the TEDxGDUT event, and was also spreading on social media.
Graphic Design
Logo
Following the TEDx Design Guideline, we created logos for our organization.
Logo under black backgrund is primarily used because black represents the unknown future. For printing purposes, we use white background for better readability.
Poster
Ideation
Focusing on our theme SEEK, we started explore visual designs and expression.
Revisit
We sent our initial drafts to the internal group to ask for opinion. The response is overall positive, and some staff really love the fifth and sisth ones. However, we realized that the posters simply echo the word “seek” by manipulating the geometric shapes without providing richer meaning.
Thus, we scraped the current posters and started over. This time, we decided to tell a story just like what we did in the intro video, where people get lost in the maze but there is always a bright future at the exit, as long as they don’t give up. As a result, the poster and the intro video consistently reflect the theme of our event, which we believe will make the conference more influential and memorable.
Social Media(Wechat) Layout and Design
Badge
