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SEMI is a trade organization composed of member companies that provide the equipment, materials, software, devices, and services that enable technologies to create a smarter world. SEMICON, SEMI’s flagship offering, is a global series of expositions that bring the incredibly diverse worldwide electronics supply chain together at regional events. In need of captivating visuals that would help communicate its value to this wide-ranging industry, SEMI partnered with Sans Serif to create a unified verbal and visual theme to be used at all events throughout its promotion cycle in 2022 around the theme “Forward as One.” The outcome: greater unity, sense of purpose, and future-forward innovation for the semiconductor and microelectronics industry.
We started with research and theme concepts for stakeholders to review. To begin elaborating visuals, we reviewed past theme variations which were interpreted differently in each area. It was important to look at criteria to evaluate theme concepts:
Our strategists and designers collaborated to generate visual and verbal themes that met these goals. The chosen concept, Forward as One, expresses the reality and goal of SEMI and its members not working in silos, advancing semiconductor innovation as a community, and illustrating the collective strength of the SEMI member companies. SEMI acts as a catalyst to accelerate semiconductor transformation and advance the semiconductor industry. It’s all about its members, which compose the organization, rather than advancing its own interests as an entity.
The visuals, which we named “Threads,” demonstrates the idea of movement, literally visualizing speed and fluid motion. This approach moved sharply away from the geometric themes of the past, incorporating more dynamism and momentum, representing those qualities in the industry. Metal type threads were visualized to animate and represent a product cycle or a linear forward path. A thin thread of green flowed through the shape to indicate SEMI’s integrated, catalytic role in each region and as a thread connecting them.
Once SEMI approved the overall theme, we got to work animating the design in dynamic motion and video for each region, engaging the audience with a driving force flowing up and to the right. Once the animations were set, our team came up with still illustration applications to fit all specifications from small digital banners to large event signage. This included a primary “ball” shape, a “curve” for variety, and a “string” shape in extreme horizontal and vertical cases. These assets were distributed to each region for ease of use, empowering them to effectively promote the event in formats such as PowerPoint presentations and digital banners.
A framework for using these assets was meticulously documented in a 35-page event brand guideline PDF, providing clear guidance and usage guardrails for partners and vendors on everything from minimum size and how not to implement the design to specific layouts for smooth applications.
Collaborating with our client on communicating a clear design theme for international regions was a success. SEMI now had a cohesive look and feel at each SEMICON event from San Francisco to Taiwan. As needs arose for each conference, we further created unique variations of the art for booth design, street flags, badges, email confirmations and countless other detailed executions to bring to life the uniqueness of the industry around the globe, united by the activities of SEMI. Partners, from different languages and cultures, were able to understand and promote their events with easy-to-use assets and guidelines.
This concept was utilized at SEMICON expos for two years. Due to the strong outcome, we’ve partnered once again with SEMI to imagine a new interpretation of growth and partnership to build on Forward Together in 2023 and 2024.
