HAckathon Branding
MHacks - Spring/Summer 2020
MHacks is a 36 hour (3 day) student run hackathon at the University of Michigan. Since 2012, MHacks has been setting the stage for hackathons globally, bringing in 1000+ hackers from around the world, and is one of the largest hackathons in the nation. However, due to covid, we moved our event online this year.
As the design lead, I directed and managed the design team to create all graphics, design and social media content for this event.
My role:
Design Lead
Team size:
5 designers, 38 total core members,
4 leads/directors in core team
Tools + Skills:
• Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Figma, html/css
• Logo & Branding, Website Design, Social Media Outreach & Content,
• Leadership, Communication/Delegation, Time Management, Problem-Solving
Style Guide
Our style guide was inspired by the theme for our MHacks- “connectivity”. The colors and circular shapes are inspired by copper wires. The circuit board design also riffs off of the connectivity concept while also adopting a copper aesthetic. Our finalized typography and color hierarchy are shown below, along with our design assets. Through this process, I aimed to keep in mind the visibility of our designs and how they might look in different contexts (media platforms or printing).
Our Instagram Content
The design team brainstormed and curated our social media posts, incorporating animations and multi-post layouts on our instagram.
challenges & Accomplishments
At the end, we pulled off a successful event. As a reflection on this experience, the greatest challenges and accomplishments during this time were:
• Keeping the design team members engaged and motivated while working (especially when meeting online)
• Developing leadership and communication skills while staying empathetic, and understanding how to manage a team and to keep the agenda moving within a bigger group
• Being proactive in communication and problem solving when issues come up, (for ex, missed social media posts, issues with website content)
• Creating a timeline for deliverables/tasks and understanding the needs of other teams (tech, sponsorship and logistics team)
• Lack of leadership from above—and learning to self-navigate and direct the design team even when lacking overall direction.
Our design team will be gearing up to prepare and do branding for another hackathon possibly in the winter semester! This was an experience full of learning new skills both technically and as design lead. In the future, I hope to do more with tailoring the user experience for our events through our branding and designs.