Conferences and live experiences
Shaping the visual identity and marketing of global tech events for over nine years.
INTRODUCTIONFor nine years I designed and produced developer conferences across the US and Europe: GOTO, GraphConnect, Scala Days, and Lean Startup Week. Each one needed an identity that could live on a forty-foot stage screen and a two-inch badge at the same time. The recurring idea was simple. Anchor each event in its city, then carry that identity into every surface an attendee would touch.
Year
2015-2021
Duration
9 years
Client
Trifork, Lean Startup Co.
Categories
Event identity, environmental design, art direction, production
50+ conferences across the US and Europe
125% partnership revenue growth
15% lift in attendee engagement
4.8/5 attendee satisfaction
GOTO CHICAGO Owning the whole room.
Trifork's CEO asked me to come back and run the Chicago conference series. The event needed to fill a landmark hall with more than a thousand developers, look like a serious international conference, and give partners real visibility without turning the stage into a billboard.
What I did. I owned event design and production end to end. That meant developing the theme for each edition, designing the stage and screen graphics, printed banners, floor signage, conference website, digital assets, sponsor materials, and merchandise, then producing all of it: sourcing and selecting vendors, managing print and merch production, running AV, and supporting the core team and contractors on site. I also created the CTO Roundtable, a recurring session that brought together more than a hundred technology leaders from the Chicago area.
Outcome. The stage design made sponsor placement part of the identity rather than an interruption to it, and partners noticed. Partnership revenue grew 125% with AWS, Google, Atlassian, Twilio, GitLab, and Capital One among the sponsors, and the series earned a 4.8/5 attendee satisfaction score.
GRAPH CONNECTDesigning inside a partner's brand.
GraphConnect was Neo4j's flagship conference and I owned the visual concept end to end across San Francisco, New York, London, Amsterdam, Chicago, and Boston. The work meant building an identity that belonged to each city while staying true to their brand. Neo4j's network-node pattern became the texture, and the skyline in orange became the signature. From there it went everywhere: feather flags at the entrance, floor decals that doubled as wayfinding, room signs named for city landmarks, the interview set, lounge screens, the closing slide, and custom logo treatments on shirts, cups, water bottles, and picnic blankets.
SCALA DAYSA community that notices the details.
Not every event started from a blank page. Scala Days came with an established identity, and my job was to carry it into production without letting it drift: badges and lanyards with a clear sponsor hierarchy on the back, stage and signage, and merchandise that gave each city its own mark. Chicago got the skyline and the stars of the city flag; New York got the Statue of Liberty. Scala developers are precise people, and the design had to hold up to that scrutiny in every format, down to the branded cookies at the coffee break.
LEAN STARTUP WEEKThe conference behind the movement.
Lean Startup Week grew out of Eric Ries's book, and the conference had to feel like the ideas did: practical, direct, built for people who ship. I worked directly with Eric and his leadership team to bring it to life, leading logistics, marketing, and creative coordination for more than 2,000 attendees on a $1M+ budget with a team of five. Then the brand had to work at a smaller, faster cadence. Monthly Lean Startup Nights and remote summits in New York and London became a repeatable system the community could recognize instantly, and engagement across 500+ members rose 30%.
RESULTSThe results showed up in the room and on the balance sheet.
CLOSINGTogether we
Built GOTO Chicago into a landmark-hall conference with Trifork's team, growing partnership revenue 125% and earning a 4.8/5 attendee satisfaction score
Carried the GraphConnect identity across six cities with Neo4j, from stage and signage to floor decals and merchandise
Brought Scala Days to Chicago, New York and Amsterdam with an identity that held up to the scrutiny of a precise developer community
Turned Eric Ries's Lean Startup Week into a 2,000-person conference and a monthly community rhythm that grew engagement 30%
Secured and supported partners including AWS, Google, Atlassian, Twilio, Neo4j, GitLab, and Capital One, designing their presence into the stage, signage, and materials of each event
“Niley is a bliss to work with. Not only is she happy and good company, but she also does what she promises to do at our conferences and goes the extra mile to make things even better. I can always rely on Niley, and I always look forward to seeing her.
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