Commanding and controlling a precious commodity.

Brief

Create a theme and corresponding campaign for San Francisco Design Week 2024 that is engaging in a way that allows participants to feel a sense of ownership over the theme, with space to translate it in their own way through projects, events, exhibits, and action.

Audience

A diverse array of designers, entrepreneurs, technologists, artists, activists, and strategists from the Bay Area and beyond.

Opportunity

The 2024 San Francisco Design Week was taking place in a particularly “noisy” climate of a hotly debated presidential election year, where we could see first hand how hype is generated, the constant reality of noise in our culture, and the internal struggle to stay mindful and grounded in our daily lives and work.

Concept

Attention is a precious commodity. It can be given, commanded, competed for, bought, stolen, grabbed, and hogged. Whatever gets attention reaps the benefits. As the saying goes, the grass is greener where you water it. Shaping the future requires the ability to both focus our concentration and command the consciousness of others. Attracting the interest of consumers, investors, employees, and media is how Bay Area start-ups and brands have grown into the world’s most influential companies. With everything around you - from the tiniest detail to the biggest story - demanding attention, what’s worthy of yours? And how do you focus your attention to grow what matters to you?

Design

A great analogy to the idea of attention is the simple highlighter pen, which is designed specifically to attract our attention. So we’re using highlighter green, scale, and repetition to convey the sense of things taking over and fighting for attention until it’s all just noise and nothing matters at all. We can then clear away a bit of that noise, and suddenly that’s the thing we pay attention to. And we find that oftentimes, it’s the smallest details that aren’t shouting for our attention that are the most valuable place to focus.

Voice

There are many ways to garner attention with voice. Sometimes it’s shouting, but often times in an environment that is saturated with everyone shouting and competing for attention, it’s a whisper that truly stands out. We played with this dichotomy through the language of the campaign, at times “shouting” through big, bold type: “Attention! Look at this! Look at that!” and using scale to grab the attention. And then, in contrast, tiny type provided the actual important information, which stood out against everything else that was big, bold, and in your face.