Coursera Conference 2021
Making a virtual conference feel like an event
Concept development
Art direction
The short version
My concept was chosen over two rounds of pitches, and I taught myself motion to make a virtual conference feel physical.
Coursera's annual partner conference went fully virtual in 2021, just months after our rebrand. For many university and industry partners, it was their first real experience of the new brand.
I'd led the conference brand since 2018, so I knew what made it feel like an event. I led the art direction, with a senior designer supporting production: kinetic type, video teasers, between-session interstitials, and animated learner stories.
The challenge
An event, after a year on Zoom
In 2021, we'd all been on Zoom for a year, and attention was in short supply.
Every year, Coursera brings its university and industry partners together to look ahead at the future of higher education.
Creatively, the event needed to position Coursera as the innovation partner in the global transformation of higher education and show the real impact of our community. And because this was one of the first big moments for the new brand, it had to feel unmistakably like the new Coursera, across more than 100 pieces of creative.
CONTEXT
I'd designed this conference before
I'd designed the conference brand for London in 2018 and ASU in 2019, and in 2020 I helped re-plan the entire experience for virtual in the weeks before the event.
Before starting 2021, I pulled together a history of every Coursera Conference since 2013: themes, co-hosts, objectives, and design. That gave the team a shared picture of where the event had been and where it could go.
2018
One identity for Coursera and its partners
In 2018, I rebranded the conference itself.
Until then, each year borrowed the host school's colors, so the look changed every year, nothing could be reused, and a lot of design time went into starting over.
I tied the conference to Coursera's brand instead. I paired two blues from our palette with two richer, collegiate tones for our university partners, so the identity itself showed the two communities coming together, which is what the conference is about. Coursera's brand shapes and patterns carried our “vibrant” brand attribute into the celebration. Partners loved the new experience, and because the system carried from year to year, we could invest in staging and materials we'd reuse, and spend less design time every year after.
Partners Conference 2018: one identity for Coursera and its university partners.
THE IDEA
Toward a better tomorrow
A virtual event can easily feel like one more meeting.
I wanted it to feel dynamic and immersive, so the concept leaned on motion: kinetic type, video, and animation that added a sense of physicality to a digital space.
To get there, I taught myself motion design for this project. It changed what we could offer partners, and it's become part of how I work.
THE PROCESS
Two rounds to get it right
Another senior designer and I each pitched concepts.
My first direction, “Kinetic spark,” was built for a screen-only event: outline type that filled in, soft blurs that pulled images in and out of focus, and starburst shapes for themes like spark, converge, amplify, and transform. The stars had nine points, a small easter egg for the ninth conference. I prototyped an animated Zoom background, a moving banner to liven up the out-of-the-box event website, and social stickers with kinetic and scrolling type, since interactivity was a big part of the conference experience.
It landed well, but after seeing the first round, our Director of Brand made the call that the conference should sit much closer to the rebrand. Partners were about to meet the new Coursera for the first time, and recognition mattered more than novelty. I took that note and built a second direction around our most recognizable asset: the C. That's the one we launched.
Kinetic spark: social stickers with kinetic and scrolling type.
THE SYSTEM
A sub-brand, not a new brand
In the final system, the brand's C became a window into the conference, framing learners, speakers, and session topics.
Everything else stayed close to the core identity.
Logo
Our new brand architecture: a smaller "Coursera" and a larger event name, so it read as family with its own identity.
Type
Bold Source Sans Pro, our brand typeface, for a confident voice.
Color
Mostly cool tones for our Trusted value, with warm accents for Uplifting and Inventive.
THE WORK
Designing for each moment
Each touchpoint got its own kind of motion.
Teasers by channel
A video-driven reel to stop the scroll on social, and a lightweight, type-only animation for email, where every kilobyte counts.
Website
The event platform was out of the box, so I used bold imagery and motion as a low-lift way to make the template feel like ours.
Interstitials
Short videos between sessions reflected the conference themes and kept energy up across hours of programming.
Learner stories
I used a parallax effect to bring still photos of learners to life, so their stories had movement and presence on screen.
THE RESULT
2,500 registrations, 18 countries
By the end of March, three weeks before the event, the conference had 2,500 registrations.
On the day, it brought together more than 100 speakers from 60 institutions in 18 countries, across 55+ sessions.
What I learned
Constraints point to the idea
Being virtual felt like a limitation, but it’s what pushed us toward motion, which made the event feel more alive than a static stage set could have.
A no to round one isn’t a no to the idea
Moving closer to the rebrand felt like a constraint at first, but it sent me back to the brand’s own building blocks, and the C turned out to be a stronger idea than anything I’d added on top.
Know where the system bends
Keeping the conference close to the core brand built recognition for the rebrand. The logo architecture gave it just enough room to be its own thing.
