Every Drop Counts
World Water Week is a global event that brings together more than 500 decision-makers from the water development sector. The Inter-American Development Bank is one of its most important partners. It organizes the regional chapter, Focus on the Americas. How to create a recognizable, versatile and sustainable identity to singularize their work?
The first time the Water and Sanitation division called us to work on World Water Week, back in 2015, we developed two general visual identity paths. We found a way to link the elements associated with efficient water use, from the more obvious ones such as drops, to the less obvious ones such as computers. We searched for inspiration in the wide universe of water.
The identity system we created is supported by a wide variety of icons and a chromatic palette that uses the color universally associated with this resource –blue– but is not limited to it. It has been consolidated and updated every year, until it has become the distinguishable visual brand of the Spotlight in the Americas.
In addition to being sustained over time, this visual identity had to remain flexible and versatile, since it is necessary to apply it in multiple contexts. Digital invitations, digital and printed agendas, physical and digital pieces, policy publications, static and animated plaques for social networks, videos, ambiance screens of several sizes and presentation templates for speakers in Spanish, English and Portuguese are part of the set that we develop every year. A drop is enough to prove it: in 2021, we created 88 unique digital pieces, including content, format and language variants.
On average, the Focus on the Americas includes 10 different sessions among panels, dissertations and case presentations, some of which belong to parallel events that, although they are supported by the general identity, have a specific image that we have also designed ad hoc.
Partners with a voice (and logo)
Each session is co-organized by multiple IDB partner institutions, and each expects to see its logo applied correctly and in a balanced and attractive composition. On average, each year we have 30 logos from several international organizations, governments, companies and civil society associations. They have to be applied everywhere, from publications to the walls of the stand we also design.
Year after year, our process has become more refined and efficient. The internal control mechanisms for content and adjustments, the rounds of comments and validations –from the client and the convening partners– that each piece requires, the testing of each digital piece on different platforms and devices: we have to know each variant and be attentive to every detail. At the same time, we have very strict deadlines for each piece: the timely sending of invitations depends on the magnitude of the turn out, the success of the live sessions depends on the correct functioning of the presentations. We even set up a communication “watch” for last minute inconveniences, which has crossed all the time zones where the event took place.
Many things have changed since we started working on the World Water Week identity. Even the event itself which, due to the pandemic, in 2020 and 2021 has been entirely virtual. We are proud to continue accompanying the IDB in this adventure.
