2015 mam conference.

While not strictly a design position, my job with the Minnesota Association of Museums leaves me with a lot of design projects on my to-do list, including the identity and collateral for our most-recent state-wide conference.

This was my first experience designing for such a large event and my oh my was there a learning curve. When you are the only employee of an organization, you automatically become the designer, communications professional, program manager, project manager, and administrative support all at once. This meant not only was I organizing and managing the whole event, I was also writing, creating, and promoting it as well.

Things I learned: you can plan as much as you want but things will always slam together at the last minute, working with remote colleagues and vendors out of town is a lesson in organization and perseverance on your own part, and there can indeed be both too many and too few cooks in the kitchen all at once.

The theme, Building the Plane We're Flying: a community-designed un-conference, speaks to the innovative and often chaotic world of museums large and small. I don't think I was prepared for the amount of collateral this event required, what with social media graphics, a pre-conference guide, a conference program, web graphics and webpage design, advertising and sponsorship forms, signage, and other promotions and day-of necessities. This was definitely a learning experience where I realized just how fast I needed to move, how to expand a graphic to encompass all types of materials, and just how much I could handle.