Case Study · COLTT CONFERENCE
A retro theme, carried all the way through.
Branding, print, digital, and environmental design for the University of Colorado’s annual education technology conference — starting with a retro-themed logo and ending with a program built to be scanned in seconds.
01 / Project
A full identity for a one-time event.
COLTT (Colorado Learning and Teaching with Technology) is the University of Colorado’s annual conference for educators exploring new teaching practices and technology. I was brought on as Digital Design Assistant to build a cohesive set of branded materials for that year’s event — logos, apparel, print collateral, and digital graphics — all tied to a retro theme for the year.
02 / Approach
Starting with the mark, then building outward.
Setting the Look
I started with the logo, designing a mark that leaned into that year’s retro theme, then carried that same visual language — type, color, shape language — across the rest of the assets so everything felt like it belonged to one event.
The Biggest Lift: The Program
The conference program was the most demanding piece — communicating a lot of information (sessions, times, speakers, locations) in a genuinely small physical space, without the design collapsing into visual noise. High-contrast colors were part of the plan from the start, chosen for legibility rather than as a late accessibility fix. The real design problem was information hierarchy: figuring out what needed to be biggest, what could be smallest, and how much white space could survive before the page felt too dense to scan quickly.
03 / System
The system, applied across the conference.
The retro mark and color system carried across the full set of materials — the program, signage, apparel, and digital graphics attendees saw throughout the event.
04 / In Practice
Built to be used, not just admired.
The finished program held up well in practice — it drew good feedback from both coworkers and conference attendees, which was the real test. Information-dense print pieces either get used or get skimmed and set aside, and this one got used.
