Plaid Forum virtual event

In 2021, Plaid set out to launch its first flagship customer event: fully digital, but designed from the start to eventually have a physical presence. The event needed a name and an identity to match — and we had about a month to make it happen.

Working with a small team — a lead designer, a supporting designer, and myself — we ran workshops to align on experience principles and land on a name. The result was Plaid Forum (a deliberate nod to “platform”). From there, we explored three distinct creative directions: a raw, brutalist approach that exposed the scaffolding of building; a bright, amorphous concept evoking possibility and emerging ideas; and a pattern-based direction centered on community and collective voices.

Recognizing early that motion would be essential to making the identity feel polished, I secured budget to bring on motion contractor Jonas Elsgaard — someone I’d worked with before on plaid.com. We ultimately landed on a blend of two of the concepting directions, combining a terminal-inspired aesthetic with a grid metaphor. From final concept to a full set of event partner guidelines took about a week and a half.

The event drove 2,100+ registrations and 200+ MQLs — more than 4x the output of the customer event we’d held just two quarters prior. Anecdotally, the identity made an impression beyond the event itself: one design hire mentioned that Plaid Forum had positively influenced their decision to join the company.