bari 1.0

logo identity

bari conference

2024

context

Bari is a forum where community leaders, researchers, and policy makers gather to discuss societal change. using data as its core, the conference builds narratives and plans for the betterment of communities around Boston.

Bari started in 2020, and has employed independent artists to design their banner. However, they never had a visual identity before. my task was to create a visual identity that shows the power of togetherness and diversity that translates across both online and physical touchpoints.

problem

solution

we looked at science conventions of the 60’s, where the nostalgia and whimsical nature of the inventions were apparent, and thought that those same feelings needed to be applied to this work. colors, weaving energy, and movements. graphics, starting with simple shapes to build a dream

process

round 1:
collective
heartbeat

bari is made of many communities, each with its own character, each working on its own, but all contributing to the same purpose. i pictured that as a collective heartbeat: dots of different colors and sizes pulsing together, animated so the whole field breathes like one body. the circle became the core idea, not just a shape but a way to connect human stories to technical data. it’s how maps turn numbers into something you can see, with each circle a place, a person, a data point.

from there, i built a system. one dot is a single data point. many dots become a sea of data. pull the sea into a pattern and you get an insight, with endless variations for years of conferences to come. i built the bari wordmark from that same grid, and used halftone portraits so every attendee’s face was made of dots too. it was smart, but it was still talking about data. the people were in there somewhere, but you had to squint. started where the data is. every person is a dot, and enough dots make a picture, the way halftone printing turns tiny circles into a photograph. i built the bari wordmark from that same grid of dots. it was smart, but it was still talking about data wasn’t the focus, the focus should have been on the community.

01 illustrations of sea of data

04 id mock-up

03 id mock-up

02 first draft of the BARI logo

round two: community
focus

so i pushed in two directions. the first kept the dot as the data, but set it on a modular, circular grid and connected it to the letterforms. the dots join the strokes, and the strokes swell around the dots, so bari reads as shapes that feel organic rather than techy, still made of data but softer to the touch.

the second came at the community from another angle: people banding together the way threads do in a weave. on their own they’re just strands, but woven together they hold. i paired that checkered weave with hotter colors, orange, pink, yellow, and green, to show the warmth and energy of a young community.

05 direction 1 circular grid

07 direction 2’s weaving

08 direction 2

06 direction 1

eureka

built from circles

in the wild

the second direction opened up the real brief. bari didn’t want to look like a data conference. it wanted to feel optimistic, dream-like, futuristic, and inclusive. the new frame: a science expo with the energy of a mid-century science fair, where people show up to imagine what the future could be.

every illustration is made from circles. the people are all different on the surface, but they’re made of the same shapes, which was the whole idea of the conference. then i drew the inventions they might bring to the fair:

a two-way bike, built for two people going opposite directions. one rests while the other pedals.
a broccoli-powered robot, because if robots are going to think and talk in fifty years, why not run them on vegetables?
a non-linear apartment building, for a world where homes don’t have to be square.
a rocket-fueled wheelchair, because mobility should get the best engine, not the last one.

the type is pp mori, kept simple and professional so the colors and drawings could be as loud as they wanted.

09 two-way bike

11 non-linear residential building

12 rocket-fueled wheelchair

10 brocoli-powered robot

the identity went live as the banner for the 2024 conference on bari’s website, held april 12, 2024 at the microsoft nerd center in cambridge.

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