Interactive Social is Ad Club Lexington's largest and most attended annual event. It attracts an impressive roster of marketing and design talent from across the country to present, discuss, and workshop with creatives from Central Kentucky. To celebrate its fifth anniversary, the Ad Club wanted to do something spectacular. Something wild. Something "weird." It would require a collaborative effort to pull it off.

In addition to a slate of local and regional speakers (including Marrow's Adam Brown) the Ad Club invited the inimitable Aaron Draplin to keynote the event.

Draplin is what many in the design industry refer to as "designer famous." It's a tongue-in-cheek way of recognizing that the design world's biggest icons are still relatively obscure to the general public. You may be familiar with their work, but you'd be hard pressed to name the person who made it. And Draplin is one of the most "designer famous" names you might ever encounter.

Considering the notability of the keynote speaker, an equally impressive design strategy was required. Since its inception, the Interactive Social event identity had been expertly designed and updated by Braley Design, an internationally recognized graphic design house. There was an established design language, a distinct style that defined each of the preceding events. To evolve the look for Interactive Social 5 (IS5), Marrow was tasked with preserving the design heritage, transforming it, and imbuing it with refreshed meaning.

With such an important design legacy at stake, Marrow looked to the most relevant graphic designer. It was a long shot, but we resolved to trust only one designer with the IS5 identity: Aaron Draplin himself.

Draplin graciously accepted the challenge, creating a unique and modernist symbol nicknamed the "Staragon" as well as the accompanying limited edition numbered posters.

From there, Marrow filled out the identity system with practical elements including signage, programs, name badges, and social media posts. In order to bring the symbol to life, we worked with Lexington-based creative agency Mediocre Creative to animate motion graphics and ambient video reels surrounding the event.

Creating the physical artifacts and shaping the environment of an event is critical to its success. It establishes a sense of space and time that lends credibility while creating lasting positive brand associations for attendees. In that sense, the collaborative effort to make this event remarkable returned incredible value in the form of goodwill, exposure, and awareness for the Ad Club.

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