Elemental
Interactive
2024
Parts come together to form a bigger picture.
Elemental Excelerator is a nonprofit investor in climate technologies with deep community impact. We have a 14-year investing track record. Built on the belief that it takes more than funding for companies to succeed, Elemental provides a suite of services, resources, events and tools to unlock growth.
Our graphic design system for our annual event, Elemental Interactive, expounds on this idea. The design system, Unlocking Progress, shows how parts come together to form a bigger picture.
Full time in-house design
Year
2024
Category
Art Direction
Graphic Design
Type of Work
Branding
Visual Identity
Event Design
Graphic Design
At Elemental Interactive, more than 500 investors, entrepreneurs, green banks, philanthropists, policy stakeholders and community-based organizations convened on an afternoon in San Francisco to take action on scaling essential climate solutions that make neighborhoods and homes cleaner, healthier, safer, and more affordable.
Each investment and project deployed across different sectors yields new insights and builds momentum. Unlocked progress aims to cycle us between complexity and clarity, intricate details and the big picture.
Brand guidelines were created and directed by Jenna with production support from e2k | events x entertainment, Joshua Darby of Studio Question Marque, and Elemental Events Director Lani Cobb. Jenna was advised by managing director of Creative, Lauren Tonokawa.
There are three main components to the design system: photography, typography, and photo configuration.
1 / Photography
Photography was selected to highlight the nature of the sectors we invest in: energy, mobility, food and agriculture, water, industry, and nature-based solutions. Photos used were chosen and manipulated based on subject matter, ease of recognition, texture, color, and composition. Photos were color graded to bring out vibrant natural hues, avoid black shadows, and ground the system in a deep blue aligning with Elemental’s core brand and the boldness and vibrancy of the entrepreneurs and innovators we invest in.
2 / Typography
A traditional serif typeface, Freight, was chosen specifically for this design system, and helped us achieve an elevated posture. Balance came with using our brand font, the humanist serif Modern Era, as a body and subheading font, creating a juxtaposition that is like Elemental, able to exist and thrive in many environments.
3 / Photo configuration
Photo configuration, the scrambling nature of the imagery, is the core to the graphic design system. Based on the idea of a slide puzzle, each movement of a tile can shift us into a better viewing position, unlocking progress. The images chosen work as textures while scrambled and static, but came into view through small movements and eventually revealed on stage during the main program.
