ted conferences: ted fellows book

5
[email protected] TED Conferences: TED Fellows Book

Upload: lope-gutierrez-ruiz

Post on 08-Apr-2017

157 views

Category:

Design


5 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: TED Conferences: TED Fellows Book

[email protected]

TED Conferences:TED Fellows Book

Page 2: TED Conferences: TED Fellows Book

TED Conferences:TED Fellows Book

Background Info:The TED Fellows program gathers

a global network of over 250 innovators from a wide range of

disciplines. Founded in 2009, the program “brings together young world-changers and trailblazers

who have shown unusual accomplishment and courage”.

In 2013, TED Conferences hired In-House, the design studio I

co-founded to develop and design a book about the first five years of the

TED Fellows Program to distribute in the very first TED Fellows Retreat

in Whistler, Canada.

Goals:1) The book had to be the definitive

document on the history of the first years of the TED Fellows program. Rather than a collection of articles previously published in media, the

book had to provide a tridimensional view of the challenges, successes,

failures, human stories and unexpected results of the program’s

first half-decade. We were tasked with the full editorial development of the book, including its concept,

content, and design.

2) The book also had to serve as a marketing tool, creating awareness

about the program's impact to show to partners and sponsors.

Infographics, timelines, and statistics could be included, but they could not break the editorial pace of

the book. We were tasked to make an engaging product about human

stories – not an annual report.

Challenge:How might we tell the stories of

over 200 very different people and their heterogeneous visual work,

while keeping a cohesive and engaging overall narrative?

NETWORKS

PROJECTS

COLLABORATIONS

* detail of process / concept boards, as presented to client.

Page 3: TED Conferences: TED Fellows Book

Process:To create a compelling editorial experience I researched, tested, and developed solutions for the

following three areas:

1) Content: after a series of initial meetings with the client and

stakeholders I created a matrix that plotted stories, subjects and

topics – along with a compendium of narrative devices: articles,

interviews, conversations, pictorials, infographics, etc. Once

the best pairings of content and method were identified, we began

to build a seamless narrative,

alternating long and short form, graphics and text. The 84-page

book was designed to be substan-tial for the 3.5 hour average flight

of TED Conference attendees.

2) Identity: as a human-centered project about the strength of

networks, it’s only appropriate that the visual language of the book was

built in collaboration with other TED Fellows. I tested various

content configurations. From those insightsI created a system to

manage over twenty collaborations worldwide to showcase the diversity

of the Fellows' visual work.

Page 4: TED Conferences: TED Fellows Book

Process (continued):We partnered with MIT graphic

designer and TED Fellow E. Roon Kang to create the visual brand.

Chapter covers featured collaborations with designers,

artists and photographers; infographics were built with the help of data scientists from the

TED Fellows community.

Lastly, I built a system designed to create a seamless visual narrative based on two rules: a limited color

palette, and a rigid grid. This proved flexible enough to support diverse

graphic styles while still providing a uniform product experience.

3) Production: we took advantage of digital printing technology by

printing a book that featured 170 different covers for the book, each

featuring a different Fellow.

This was unprecedented for a book a print run numbering in the

thousands. This meant employing a combination of printing techniques:

offset for the pages of the book, and digital for the cover and back

cover – which in turn required working closely with printers in

Canada to fine-tune color management between two different

printing methods and machinery.

Page 5: TED Conferences: TED Fellows Book

Results:Eventually I discovered a latent

need in our users, the TED Fellows: after interviewing about a dozen of

them I discovered that most had only meet about 20 other Fellows –

the ones that were part of their class. All of them said that they

wished there were a social / community experience that helped

them meet other Fellows quickly.

This finding differed from our original goal, but was important

enough to propel us to address this need with out design work.

In 2013, several thousand copies of the book were printed, with

hundreds distributed during the TED Fellows Retreat and quickly becoming a much-talked-about

event highlight.

TED Fellows were encouraged to swap their copies of the book and

to find a copy that featured their own face on the cover, which in turn created a unique social experience: each copy of the book passed many

sets of hands, becoming a social device for swapping stories and

meeting new people.

An unintended effect of the success of this social experience was that

attendees carried their books everywhere, displaying them in

hopes of eventually finding a copy with their own face on the cover!

The book success prompted a continuing collaboration with the TED Conference and TED Fellows team which includes projects in a

variety of media – some of it featured in this page. Clockwise

from top left: data presentations for the TED Conference, stage keynotes

for flagship TED Youth conference, motion graphics for "Looking Out"

for the TEDxSMU, interactive graphics for TED.com blog. More

recently, we developed a new editorial product for TED Fellows:

“Swimming Against the Tide”, a 300-page, full color hard cover coffee table book featuring the

visual work of the TED Fellows, on the occasion of the second TED

Fellows Retreat in 2015.

Role(s):Creative Direction, Art Direction,

User Research, Project Management.

HOW MUCHDOES YOUR WORKSUPPORT YOUFINANCIALLY?

I’M COMFORTABLE

I’M ABLE TO PROVIDEFOR MYSELF

& MY FAMILY

I COULD BEMORE SECURE

I’M JUSTSCRAPING BY

I’M ALWAYSOUT OF MONEY

19%19% 19%

37%

6%

November 15, 2014Brooklyn Museum