SmartDollar Impact Summit — Mitch Santos Design

SmartDollar: Franklin, TN

SmartDollar Impact Summit:

The SmartDollar Impact Summit was a high-end event created to celebrate and connect with a number of our top-tier clients. The goal was to provide networking opportunities within the benefits management space, ultimately fostering community and deeper business relationships. We planned to bring in a panel of experts to provide leadership within the benefits space and celebrate a few of our most successful clients with an awards ceremony.

Services Provided:

Visual Identity and Discovery
Branding
Typography
Layout
Web Design

`SmartDollar Impact Summit Final Invitation Design`

Moodboard Process:

We wanted the event to feel upscale and hosted everything in the beautiful J.W. Marriott in downtown Nashville. The hotel is full of clean lines and modern décor contrasted against earthy textures and warm leather that struck the right balance for the event’s tone. Inspired by the space, we wanted every facet of the SmartDollar Impact Summit to feel like a cohesive experience and, after visiting the hotel, we used specific elements from the environment to form the basis of our two main visual directions.

We started with a mood board to ensure a strong visual foundation and stakeholder buy-in. We wanted to capture examples of unique patterns and textures along with a distinct color scheme, while capturing the right energy level and including examples of the event’s attendees and environment.

Option 1:

The first mood board was fairly masculine, featuring many of the deep blues found throughout the hotel paired with gold accents. I was inspired by the geometric carpet pattern, as it felt like a high-end extension of shapes already found in our brand. This board was inspired by rich tones, deep leather, and bourbon, embodying the exclusive nature of the event.

Option 2:

On the feminine side, we explored an alternate direction that was driven by forest greens and the copper piping found throughout the lobby. There was a beautiful wall in the lounge that served as the perfect springboard for a casual, celebratory spirit of connection that leaned on more organic textures as a nod to the space’s wooden, antique mirrors.

Invitation:

Both mood boards were very well received, but ultimately our team decided to go with a blue theme, as it closely tied to our existing brand. With the color scheme decided, I started planning the invitations.

We wanted the invitation to carry weight and discussed gold foiling with doubled sheets of patriot blue paper to give the invitation itself heft.

Outside of the main card, I added some extra accents including an invitation wrap held together by a Ramsey-branded wax seal for an additional flair.

`Sketches of Patterns Found Throughout the Hotel`

Pattern:

After sketching many different patterns throughout the hotel, I kept coming back to the carpet configuration. I loved the connection between the invitation and the event space and how the angled, geometric shapes were already on brand. Based on the carpet layout, I created a seamless pattern that we could easily use for texture or background elements on future event pieces as a branding cornerstone.

Final Event Logo Design

Design Process:

With the colors and patterns set, I moved into the process of actually designing the invitations. Everything had a bit of an art deco vibe, so I worked on pulling together fonts and type treatments that felt cohesive. I created a custom logotype for the mark with some subtle accents to the core typeface and broke the pattern down into simple accent pieces. In order to add some depth, I broke up the gold foiling in the pattern with grey tones and used those added shapes to create custom envelope labels.

`Invitation Sketches and Style Exploration`

Final Assets:

After obtaining sign-off on the final design, I worked with our printers to deliver the final assets, including custom envelopes with paper matching the invitations so that everything felt cohesive. We added our labels and custom SmartDollar stamps to the envelope for added branding in addition to foiling the invitations with the custom angled wrap. Once we received everything in-house, our team sealed each invitation with wax.