After Intelligence
Visual identity and event marketing for speaker series at California College of the Arts
UI/UX DesignJoel Lithgow
Project ManagementNikol Plass
Content and Social MediaJoyce Alcantara
PhotographyNicholas Lea Bruno
Creative Strategy
In December 2025, deans from the four academic divisions at California College of the Arts began planning a spring speaker series called After Intelligence. The series was to serve as a public inquiry into the impacts of artificial intelligence and automation on cultural production, civic life, and the human imagination, and our role in shaping what comes next. The deans asked CCA's Marketing and Communications team to market the event, requesting a visual identity that was engaging while avoiding stereotypical artificial intelligence visuals like futuristic tropes or flashy graphics. With our creative strategy, we aimed to apply a CCA-specific lens by emphasizing the evolution and continuity of AI rather than portraying it as a disruption, beginning with the development of a flexible wordmark and visual system that could shift and adapt to reflect AI as an ongoing process.Wordmark
Considering the idea of the evolution and continuity of AI, the goal was to create a wordmark that appeared fluid even in its static state. This was achieved through a custom-made typeface, created by overlapping a grid of circles with a traditional grid to construct modular letterforms with continuous curves. In the wordmark's animated form, ripples of energy flow through the letterforms, repeatedly altering their appearance.Visual Identity
In developing the visual identity, it was important to draw from CCA's current brand in order to connect the event identity with the look and feel of the college. Aside from the custom type in the wordmark, all materials use CCA's main sans-serif typeface, Brown. The color palette highlights CCA's brand orange, accented by variations of two other brand colors (a lighter tint of our brand tan, a lighter tint of our brand green, and a darker shade of our brand green). Transformation is a key theme reflected not only in the wordmark but also across the entire visual identity; the typeface grid is employed as a graphic element, shifting scale between mediums, and organic shapes created by paint marbling serve as a backdrop for the designs.Website
The microsite served as the central hub for the After Intelligence series, housing speaker profiles, event listings, live streams, and post-event recaps as the series evolved. Built with Astro 5 and a custom design system, the site extends the visual identity into a fast, accessible web experience. It was developed in collaboration with Claude Code, an AI coding assistant—making the process itself a small reflection of the event's central questions.Digital Marketing
Our email marketing strategy began by identifying key audiences: the internal CCA community, the broader San Francisco art and design network, and those curious about AI. We built a phased campaign introducing the event, highlighting speakers, issuing a final registration push, and following up with recaps and re-engagement.Each email mirrored the microsite's visual identity and directed users back to it, allowing us to track engagement and centralize registration, media, and updates. Tailored communications for registrants provided event details, while post-event emails extended the conversation and reinforced After Intelligence as an ongoing platform.
Outcomes
5.8K
Webpage Views
1.9K
Marketing Conversions
428
Total Attendees
"What the team built for After Intelligence felt like a genuine expression of CCA's creative values: rigorous, visually inventive, and grounded in a real point of view. The campaign held together across every touchpoint in a way that's hard to achieve and easy to recognize when it works."
"The microsite raised the bar for how CCA presents a public program. It wasn't just a landing page, it was an editorial experience that gave the work the frame it deserved."