Hack Club’s Horizons

Horizons is a marriage of two chaotic ideas. We originally wanted to run a very big, all inclusive event in the US, as well as run many smaller, but distinct, global events. This idea was not easy to explain, and the burden to communicate it fell upon me.

Problems

• We have 6 events with 6 different localizations, aesthetics, and identities. We need an umbrella identity that isn’t overpowering, but isn’t boring.
• How do we convey this very unique format of a hackathons to a typical teenager?

I also wanted to achieve some side goals with this, specifically making something that feels fun to look at and use!

When developing Horizons, I was at a complete loss at where to begin. I started by referencing work done by a previous team member.

Before they left, they had been working on a highly retro aesthetic, that me and the team really liked and appreciated. Unfortunately, while being aesthetic, I didn’t think it had a strong appeal. It felt too serious, when the atmosphere we wanted was a lot more relaxed and friendlier.

It did serve as a good starting foundation.

I started to develop this ambiguously vintage video game aesthetic. It wasn’t exactly nostalgic, but it definitely took cues from a retro aesthetic and arcades.

The Horizons aesthetic ended up being really playful, and didn’t feel dominating or overpower. I believed that the other events would be able to come up with branding that meshed well with our aesthetic. But due to timeline constraints, it would take a while before I would know this for sure.

We had to settle on a brand, and the team really enjoyed this aesthetic. So we locked in on this one.

I had such a blast working with the game-y aesthetic. I made everything feel almost as if it were a game, including the landing and the main functionality.

I definitely did see it more of an artistic and experimental project, and as a result, I think I did go overboard in the features I implemented. I would later scale back on this. But, I will say it did do a great job at conveying the whimsy behind the program, especially at the start.

While our events began to finalize, we realized that our game-styled landing wasn’t exactly able to convey the many events we had on our roster. It was a largely based on a old source design, during when we planned for only one event.

After discussing it with the team, we decided we need a more traditional landing page design.

I tried to be faithful to some of the game elements of the original design, but I wasn’t afraid to get rid of anything that I thought I could not make work. I also incorporated a new painterly accent on the black, which I thought would fit nicely. I wanted to subtly capture the feel of a storybook, since after all, I want people to be making stories at a hackathon!

We did run into some legibility issues with certain events. With better coordination among event artists, I think it could’ve been avoidable. I ended up making minor stylistic changes to some of the events so they could be better integrated.

I do think this was for the best. By presenting Horizons as an overarching event across these unique subevents, we help participants visualize how this event hiearchy works. It’s understood that everyone goes through Horizons to get to their specific event, which is the intention.

Horizons as a program ran successfully. With it’s conclusion, I’ve reflected on this concept of a brand made up of different brands. I think it’s a concept I’d be interested in revisiting, since Horizons has given me good insight on some specific nuances when attempting something like this.

• It’s very possible to make something not-bland that can synergies with many different things!
• You can never make something not-bland that will synergies with everything. That isn’t a bad thing though! It just means that to add personality to the underlying brand, you need to have more thoughtful coordination.

I don’t think it’s a complete failure here, and I’ve had people appreciate the effort that went into making sure each event had a distinct voice.

There were some unique lessons here, and I definitely want to try this again in the future!