Slack Frontiers
Taking Slack’s largest conference virtual

Role: Designer + Illustrator
Credits: Rosie Bowden as Creative Lead

In 2020 the world had to learn to adapt to a new way of living. While we don’t need to rehash the many ways in which we all tried to make the most of a bad situation (Zoom happy hours anyone?), Slack was one of the many organizations that found themselves in the midst of planning for an in-person conference, only to have to completely rethink what a conference could be.

How could a conference for a workplace productivity app bring a small sense of normalcy to a world on fire? How could we pivot the conference in a way that gave attendees a semblance of that same connection and networking that encourages conference attendance in the best of times?

The Slack team has a lovely writeup that goes into more detail about the overarching values and process involved in pivoting the conference to a virtual one. My role in this effort was through design support. The attendees didn’t want swag (people were still wiping down their groceries!), but they did want to feel a part of something larger and to bond over a shared interest in all things Slack.

In addition to overall design support for the conference, one of my roles was to improve engagement through designing digital stickers, reacji (Slack emoji), and user personas that served as a visual through line of the conference. Before the conference, the attendees would take a short quiz that revealed their ‘transformational style.’ They were then gifted with a custom set of digital stickers and emoji that they could place on their virtual badges and use as conversation starters with other virtual attendees.