In our November 8 post, you may have read about all the great work the Q team has been busy producing for SC22, which was a resounding success. Expecting about 9,000 attendees, the high performance computing community showed its resilience by showing up in droves in Dallas, with nearly 12,000 in attendance. The biggest takeaway: after two years of virtual events and Zoom meetings, people want to be in-person. 

What we didn’t mention back in November is that each year as we while finalize our efforts for one SC conference, we are also busy launching the next! 

Our team, led by Design Director Todd Szymanski, actually started nearly a year ago developing the brand for SC23, the launch materials for which include a unique brand mark, an array of promotional materials and merchandise, an information booth, and (ambitiously) a refreshed website

This overlap in conference timelines keeps the Q team on its toes, but after over three decades in serving large conferences, we’re happy to have honed our skills and processes to meet our client’s needs with efficiency and grace. Okay, that was a lie. The three months while we’re tying up the current conference and launching the next is indeed insanity, but it’s also incredibly rewarding. 

SC is unique among our clients, as they reimagine their brand mark for each annual conference. This might go against the grain in terms of brand recognition guidelines touted by contemporary design standards, but as the team of SC volunteers changes every year, a unique mark helps to differentiate each year and affords the incoming team a real sense of pride and ownership of their event. 

The new conference branding was a collaborative effort that included SC23 General Chair Dorian Arnold (pictured top right), Vice Chair Christine E. Cuicchi, and Communications Chair Christine Baissac-Hayden. Several concepts were offered after an initial research phase. After the team chose the most promising concept direction, its form and color were refined based on several rounds of feedback from the entire team until a consensus was reached.

Here below is Dorian Arnold debuting the new logo to his Executive Committee during a meeting in April of 2022. Arms in the air, thumbs up, and smiles are the desired effect. We love happy clients. 

Having successfully achieved the launch of SC23, we’ll be starting concept development for SC24 in January of next year, which is right around the corner. 

— Todd