Return to Triangle AMA's High Five Conference

By Adam Buccafusco
Olivia and I attended the 2nd Triangle AMA’s (American Marketing Association) High Five Event on behalf of Burning Oak Studios.  This year’s conference was just as exciting, entertaining, and enlightening as last year! There was so much information to feed our heads in the two-day event that we had to divide and conquer. I’ll head up the creative aspect and Olivia go into the marketing aspect.

The first keynote was the return of Aaron Draplin, the founder of Draplin Design Co.  This lovable rock star of design brought a new lecture that once again warmed the cockles of my artistic heart. Draplin discussed his passion for “dead logo” hunting. Aaron would comb through flea markets, swap meets, and estate sales looking for icons of yesteryear. There are beautiful combinations of shapes, colors, and imagery that can be found in vintage branding materials. When you get down in the dumps about being a designer, Aaron Draplin is a reminder that design is suppose to be expressive, open to creativity, and most importantly it’s suppose to be fun! If you’re not having fun designing, maybe a trip to the local rummage sale will inspire and rejuvenate your creative spark.

Aaron Draplin, the founder of Draplin Design Co.

A most excellent North Carolina print by Draplin Design Co.

I sat in on the breakout session titled Data-Driven Design with ReverbNation’s Chris Johnston. ReverbNation is a site that boosts promotion for over 4 million musicians, managers, labels, venues, and events around the globe.  Johnston explains how the altering and redesigning your interface can affect your analytic trends positively and negatively.  The Sr. Director of Product Management describes a scenario where the simple color change for a navigation bar dramatically impacted how users were flowing through the site. The charts dips badly due to the nothing more than a color change. The designers had no choice but to switched back to the original bold black bar, which cause the charts to level out again. Using data trend to keep your message clear 

Chris Johnston, Sr. Director, Product Management, ReverbNation

All things considered, I felt this year was as good as last year. The show was a bit tighter and handled the weather issues well. My suggestion for High Five is add more breakout sessions about executing design and promotional campaigns, and maybe even some tips on dealing with the cost of production. I believe the Triangle AMA’s High Five event is going to get better with every year. Check back in with the burningoakstudios.com and OakNotes to find out what Olivia thought about her experience.