CASE STUDY 01.
Hosted Here
A platform to host and collaborate on creative events.
THE OVERVIEW
As Co-Founder and Creative Director of Hosted Here, I’ve worn many hats at the start-up over the past two years. From product conceptualization & management, brand & business development, copywriting, photography, styling, event planning and more, this business has allowed me to continue growing my expertise across all creative avenues.
Year: 2021-Current
THE PLATFORM
Hosted Here is a self-managed event ticketing and registration platform for creatives. As a host, you can create event pages, sell tickets, open waitlists, customize registration forms and more. The platform also handles communication between hosts and attendees, sending automated event reminders and necessary notifications.
While Hosted Here is a tech platform, our goal was to make it not feel like one. Our target community is predominately creatives who host small-scale, curated events such as workshops, retreats and other gatherings. Taking into consideration their goals and needs, we knew that the platform design and experience was a top priority. Developing and designing this platform to be extremely user friendly and “aesthetic,” while also being highly functional, required creativity and a meticulous attention to detail. In addition to balancing the design and functionality, it was my responsibility to ensure consistency across all brand touch points, including all front-end and back-end pages, as well as throughout messaging, imagery, and brand identity elements.
THE EVENTS
In order to connect with our audience outside of the platform and other digital spaces, we hosted quarterly events and experiences to help grow awareness and build trust with our users. This also gave us the opportunity to create on-brand content for marketing purposes, as well as increased user generated content from attendees. We’ve collaborated with local makers, artists and other partners to bring these one-of-a-kind events to life. From a floral workshop with Lovelily Flowers, who handpicked the flowers from a flower farm, to a lei-making class on the beaches of Big Island Hawaii hosted with Shannan Scott, each Hosted Here event was created with intention and curation as a main priority.
My responsibilities included event concept, planning and production, which always included cross collaboration with partners, venue scouting, workshop programming, budgeting and more. I also paid close attention to tastefully incorporate the brand identity throughout the events, such as using our branded wax seals across stationery elements. In summary, each experience was a chance to creatively display who Hosted Here was as a brand.
THE BRAND IDENTITY
After the first several months of business and strategy development, we collaborated with LA-based design studio, Made by Fictorium, to create our visual identity, as well as the UI/UX for the platform. Together we solidified the brand strategy and visual direction, from defining brand values, to developing moodboards, conducting competitive analysis and more. We came to the conclusion that visually we needed to avoid common themes we saw amongst other tech companies, which included bold colors, stock-like imagery and commercial logos and designs. As for the brand typography and web design, we took inspiration from the editorial world, looking to both online and print magazines to help inform our font systems and layout for various pages within the platform. In addition to the foundational visual identity, we also created brand illustrations to categorize event types, as well as patterns to be used throughout social media posts and other marketing collateral.
LET’S WORK TOGETHER
Have an idea for an exciting project? Looking for guidance and tangible support? I’d love to hear from you.