What we learned supporting TEDxSeattle
In 2021, the Artitudes team was thrilled to help with production of TEDxSeattle 2021! From creating a new animated show title to helping speakers put the words into visuals and running the live presentations during the show, we learned about more than just the engaging topics being presented.
Our motion graphics designer took inspiration from how Seattle residents see the city to create a refreshed video trailer for the times we live in today. Instead of sticking to visuals of nature and landscape around the Pacific Northwest as in the current trailer, she pivoted to a more urban and people-centric theme, updating the face of Seattle to include its inhabitants and lifestyle.
One of our senior graphic designers, Kate, had the opportunity to work with an educator who had experience in front of students but had not spoken to such a large audience before. She studied other TED and TEDx talks to guide her speaker on how to create polished visuals to enhance her message without causing distraction, even if it meant cutting slides in the end.
Grace, a graphic designer, helped support with presentation design and had her first experience backstage helping run the show. In the future, she thought it would be helpful to meet with the speakers she is supporting for a mock presentation to understand how they are presenting their content. Since the graphics were being created from a script, it would help her to create something more impactful. She was able to pivot one speaker this year after going through her talk track and was able to change static data into something more memorable for the audience using strong transitions.
As a senior designer on the team myself, I really appreciated working with the variety of topics and different speaker personalities that we don’t usually get to experience in the more corporate projects. I enjoyed delving into each script and working with the speaker to produce visuals from scratch and experimenting with different styles to suit each presenter’s personality and topic, including building materials to help reduce our carbon footprint, the importance of voting in local elections, and the importance of racial equity.
One of the most important roles was that of the client relationship Bodil created. While most of the team worked with a few speakers or other volunteers, she managed the communications and scheduling with almost everyone involved to make sure everything ran smoothly. She attended the event and the final production and recommends others to “attend if you can–it is worth your time!”
We felt privileged to take part in making TEDxSeattle a success. It was a gratifying exercise for us to each bring our expertise and gain more capabilities in an exciting, and meaningful venue. If you’d like to watch the virtual show, you can stream it here.