Sage

January 2017

Sage Sessions are one day events hosted by Sage in various cities around the world for Sage customers and business partners. Sage Sessions 2017 events were a way to disseminate content and training from Sage Summit 2016 event in Chicago to a broader audience.  The challenge was how do we design a series of events that feels like their own events, but still relates back to Sage’s overall event strategy.

While still being relatively new to Sage when this project began, I was placed as the lead Art Director. I started with auditing past Sage events. In my audit of events similar in scale and asset type, I identified what elements were continually. Sage Summit 2016 used the starburst graphic. Without wanting repeat this element from the larger event system, I used this as inspiration for the angular pattern seen in the hues of Sage blue color blocks. Using the angle was more inline with this newly launched brand identity and was much more suitable for the smaller audience. Additionally, creating a design system with color blocks and angles made it easier to scale and for other designers around the globe to leverage the designs for the specific country.

The design was carried through booths/stands, signage, emails, and digital banners. The designs were successful by being scalable and easy to translate to various sized event graphics, it allowed the Sage story to be told through multiple images.

Sage

August-September 2017

With the objective to build internal momentum for FY18 and excite colleagues around the globe, Sage kicked off FY18 with a strategic theme focused around accountability, ownership, and championship. Tasked with the assignment to create an internal-facing strategic theme that connects our colleagues to Sage’s overall company strategy. I played the role of Art Director, while the rest of the team consisted of a brand planner, copywriter, and campaign manager. The challenges the team faced were how do we inspire our colleagues to take action in FY18, a short timeline to iterate theme ideas, and a short timeline to localize artwork for 10 countries.

Three themes were explored and presented to Sage executives.

1. Bring your Sage Game
2. Shatter Expectations
3. __Starts with me.

Bring your Sage Game

This tagline is a play on the phrase, “Bring your ‘A’ game.” When it’s time to bring your ‘A’ game at Sage, you bring your Sage game. This route elevates values of accountability and team motivation, while also giving a nod to the competitive approach we should be taking to achieve our sales goals. This approach is youthful, energetic, and actionable.

Shattered Expectations

This tagline leverages aggressive language and challenges colleagues at a visceral level. Taking the theme of beating the competition, this route calls on our colleagues to push the limits and go beyond our goals. 

__ starts with me

This tagline speaks to the values we want to come across in FY18—accountability and teamwork—by including employee input in its design. The visual is designed so that each employee can fill in the word with something that empowers them, enabling employees to show us all something they strive to achieve. 

Outcome

The final themed chosen was “__ starts with me” This theme speaks to our colleagues as they play an important role in building our business for our customers. The people of our company are passionate and dedicated to accomplish something meaningful. They will go the extra mile to achieve goals for causes they believe in. We will tap into our self-driven goals of accountability, ownership, and championing. Our theme consists of a simple, action-oriented message that highlights goals our colleagues will (and want to) champion: 

The theme can be tailored to every business initiative, group VSGM, and self improvement programs in 2018. Additionally, the theme can extend past the day of the kickoff event and be flexible to drive action throughout the entire FY18.

Feedback

“I just wanted to pass along to everyone that Van was thrilled with the FY18 Kickoff Campaign. Thank you all for your hard work. The creativity, strategy and determination to WOW shows on every slide.”

– VP Executive Creative Director

“LOVE the mugs, LOVE the calendars, LOVE the wall with the commitments”

-EVP Communications

Some images are from Twitter.com