From September to December 2015 I was in charge of the communication strategy of the 61st General Assembly of ATA – Atlantic Treaty Association, their major annual event, which gathers representatives from the association’s 37 national chapters and that is usually followed by an international conference on security issue.
The conference was on “Cooperative Security and Interconnected Threats” and it was, of course involuntarily, very timely as it took place one week after the Paris attacks of November 13th in Brussels. The conference featured very high level policy makers and international experts as NATO Deputy Secretary General, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kurdistan Regional Government – the full program is here.
My mission was to gain media attention and engage new audiences on social media. They wanted to deliver a renewed and fresh image of the Association, which takes into account the different sensibilities of the speakers and participants and the high standing of the event.
To this end I choose to adopt to different styles: flat design and live sketching
Infographics > Flat Design
To present the association to guests, speakers and media I have realised an infographics (concept and design). The most difficult part of this infographics was identifying the right message: appropriate visuals and words that respects the international relations jargon and, at the same time, are comprehensible to a wider public. The infographics is also on the website to explain visually “what we do” and was printed on roll-up that were used to decorate the premises of the ATA 61st General Assembly.
Live-sketching
As usual I asked my favorite designer, Barbara Govin, to join me on this challenge. For the official dinner with the NATO Deputy Secretary General, Ambassadors to NATO, speakers and other high level personalities we decided not to make individual portraits but rather making drawings that catch the atmosphere of the evening as is was under strict Chatham House rule no quotes.
For the conference, we opted both for speakers’ sketches with a quote or a visual metaphors to explain the key concept of the intervention.
