Red Team Challenge

Roles: Visual Designer

Summary: I designed the branding for an internal event called the Red Team Challenge.

Please note: Due to confidentiality, I cannot disclose information about what the event specifically entailed as this is confidential.

BACKSTORY

In October, 2018, I designed branding and marketing materials for the Red Team Challenge. During the event, I participated as a design resource. The Red Team Challenge took place in Kitchener, Ontario at the Canadian Tire Digital Garage.

CHALLENGE 1: DESIGNING THE LOGO

TL;DR: The final logo incorporates different elements of secret teams and infiltration, while also incorporating the Canadian Tire iconic red colour.

Logo sketches - some ideas focused on secrecy, others involved infiltration, and some were just random unsuccessful experiments

My only constraint for the logo was that it should be text-based (e.g. say "Red Team Challenge) as these tend to be more popular at head office. My goal was to capture the meaning of a red team (see link for definition) and still have it feel like Canadian Tire. I chose the Canadian Tire red for the main colour and decided to make the inside letters “invisible” to capture the idea of a secret team. I also specifically chose Montserrat as the base font for the letters because it is a slight variation from Canadian Tire’s main marketing font, Gotham. While many may not recognize the difference, I thought this was a fun little addition to represent the infiltration aspect of a red team.

CHALLENGE 2: THE PROGRAM

TL;DR: I spent extra time creating a clean, colourful program for the Red Team Challenge. The result was very positive and I received a request from one of the judges to print 50 more so every top-level executive could see it.

Red Team Challenge: Program (Communitech

The Communitech map I created for the Red Team Challenge Program

In addition to the logo, I also created marketing materials for the event. One of the things I spent extra time on was a clean, colourful, easy-to-follow event program. I invested time in the program because I noticed that much of the internal corporate documents lack colour and attention to detail. Because they are internal and not being shown to the public, internal documents are often text-heavy PowerPoints or dense Microsoft Word documents. For this event, I wanted to make something that would catch the eyes of employees, even if it was an internal event. I used bright colours, cute little isometric people, and even included a cross-word to make people feel like they were going to have fun at this training instead of going to a 2-day long meeting.

The event overall was a hit. The event program got even more attention from employees than I expected — one of the judges asked for 50 more programs to be printed so every top-level executive in the organization could see “how we should go about branding for future events”. The next Red Team Challenge will be held sometime in 2019.

REFLECTION

Successes

The Program: The extra work I put into the program paid off -- employees appreciated how professional it looked, and the design added to the excitement of the event.
Branding: Branding approval can sometimes take months, but this logo was approved right away.

Failures/Things I Would Do Differently

Emphasize the value of design even more: The program was a huge hit. Next time, I will consider running a design course during the training to teach people the value of design for their projects.