Overview
WSO2Con USA 2018 was a three-day tech industry conference bringing together C-suite executives, enterprise architects, and developers to discuss current enterprise challenges through keynote speeches and interactive sessions.
The goal was to create a responsive, user-friendly event website and a full suite of marketing materials that would boost registrations, maintain brand consistency, and engage a global audience across the USA, UK, and Asia.
The project involved both initial website development and a mid-cycle rebrand, requiring close collaboration with product managers, event teams, sales teams, DevOps teams, marketing teams, designers, and engineers to deliver a seamless user experience and impactful visual design under tight deadlines.
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Client Requirement​
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Create a responsive event website for WSO2Con USA 2018 that reflects WSO2’s brand identity.
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Design engaging event marketing materials, including emails, social media banners, and promotional items, to drive registrations.
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Ensure consistent branding across three global events (USA, UK, Asia) while allowing each to have a distinct visual style.
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Support the marketing team in meeting event promotion and registration targets within tight deadlines.
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Challenge​
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Work with initial, partially developed design assets and improve the UX while keeping the visual theme intact.
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Deliver a fully functional, pixel-perfect responsive site within two weeks for the initial launch.
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Adapt and rebrand the website mid-project to match the updated visual identity across all conferences without disrupting marketing schedules.
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Produce over 30 email templates, 20+ social media banners, and multiple promotional items within limited timeframes.
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Maintain audience engagement by avoiding repetitive designs, despite high collateral volumes.
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Timeline
Dec 2017 - July 2018​
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My Role
As a web designer, I was responsible for Develop website, designing event marketing materials for WSO2Con USA.
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Tools​
Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Visual Studio Code, Wordpress​
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Links
20% Increase in Event Registrations
Fully Responsive Across Devices
Improved Brand Consistency & Usability
The outcome
The redesigned event website delivered a seamless user experience that reflected WSO2’s brand identity while simplifying the user journey. The redesign delivered measurable results, including a 20% increase in event registrations. Users found it easier to access key information and complete their sign-ups. Feedback from internal stakeholders highlighted the improved visual consistency and navigation.
The responsive design performed well across devices, especially on mobile, which accounted for a growing percentage of visitors. Overall, the project successfully supported WSO2Con USA's promotional goals and set a strong design foundation for future events.
Don't just take my word for it
Ruwanthi joined the WSO2 creative team as an intern, but within a few months she managed to learn most of the stuff including social media banners, email templates, web designing, giveaway designs, print media, etc. And now she is a key member of the creative team.
She is a fast learner, and always makes sure that her knowledge is up to date and also continuously learning new technologies. Without just designing, she collects stats and adjusts her designs accordingly. She is a very reliable team player and also helps the community by publishing her findings on her blog and other relevant journals. She is a valuable asset to any creative team."
Design process
The design process is illustrated in the following diagram. I took the lead from steps 3 to 14, collaborating with the internal marketing and event management team as well as with the external printing agency.
Site development and page designs
Stage 1: Initial concept
Website
A fellow graphic designer in our team designed the initial conference logo, visual theme, and some website page archetypes. I used these initial designs to develop web pages and created a pixel-perfect responsive web site. In the course of this process, I made several UX improvements and went live with the website in 2 weeks.
Web pages
Event marketing emails and social media banners
When designing the emails and social media banners, I tried to create new designs because given the volume of marketing collateral needed, our target audience would have found looking at the same designs repeatedly tedious.
Marketing emails
Social media banner
Stage 2: Rebranding
Website
The team later decided that the event visual identity required a complete overhaul. As a result of this decision, the designers were tasked with creating consistent logos and themes for all 3 conferences. However, given the event deadlines and registration targets, there was insufficient time to focus on event marketing collateral. I started work on the required marketing collateral whilst working on the rebranding aspects. A team member designed the website template for WSO2Con UK, which I later applied to the WSO2Con USA website.
Web pages
Event marketing emails and social media banners
I designed and developed more than 30 emails and 20 social media banners for WSO2Con USA 2018. As with the emails and social media banners during stage 1, I created new designs where possible to generate better target audience engagement.
Marketing emails
Social media timeline banners
Social media cover images
Branded merchandise
T-shirts
The design team wanted to create 3 distinct designs for each conference whilst maintaining a consistent visual brand identity. I created the T-shirt design for all 3 conferences, making sure that we didn’t incur additional costs when printing these t-shirts. I also worked closely with the printing agency to check samples and improve the print quality as needed.
Final T-shirt design for all 3 conferences
Other promotional materials
I created additional marketing material for this event - email signature banners, rotating banners on the event homepage on the website, and a range of laptop stickers.
Email signature
Laptop sticker card
Photo frame
Pullup banner
WSO2 home page banner
Reflections
This project was a great experience personally because I got an opportunity to create an entire website by myself. I also had the chance to work with many different people in Sri Lanka and the USA. Overall, I found that working with printing agencies in the USA is quite easy as they’re very flexible. Another additional learning for all of us in the design team is the importance of consistency.