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Project Launch

August 2021

PROJECT TYPE

Event Branding
Design Language
Website Creation

Company

USAA (Design Org)

Collaborators

Lead CDO Day Director
Swag Team
Speakers
Design Direction team members

USAA CDO Day 2021

"THE BEST CDO Day THUS FAR!"

USAA's CDO Day is an annual event where all USAA Chief Design Office employees get together to her from design leaders around the industry, build relationships with peers/leadership and learn new skills they can utilize to promote USAA on it's mission for an excellent member experience.

01. Design Component Creation

I collaborated with peers to design the Style Guide and Design language of CDO Day 2021 for other partners to recreate and utilize. This includes coming up with CDO's "Level Up" brand and retro game theme.

02. Strategy &Planning

As Design Direction and Swag Co-chair, I determined the theme direction of the 2021 CDO Day and worked with other project temas (Breakouts, Guest speakers, Communications, etc. ) to map out the initiative.
"Cara played a lead role in designing our asstes and creating an end-to-end theme that connected our experience across every moment of the day. Not only did she lead our overall theme, she even created the majority of our assets! WOW! Seriously, I am just so impressed..."
CDO Day Lead Director

USAA

CDO Day has traditionally been a time for designers to get together in-person and learn more about UX trends and ideals from top design leaders. Unfortunately, with COVID-19 causing all companies to social distance and work from home, we had to reimagine the CDO Day experience that would contain the same excitement and interactivity from the confines of a participant’s living room. 

In order for this to work, we began planning 9 months early (as opposed to the typical 3 month timeline) and determine how to make CDO Day just as invigorating. 

As Design Direction and Swag Co-Chair, I was tasked with creating a design language and branding for the entire event. The Level Up! theme I proposed was centered around a 80’s retro aesthetic so as to make sure the theme wasn’t too video game centric and alienate participants unfamiliar with modern video games. 

The goal was to highlight the Level up theme as more a leveling up of design skills and acumen. 

I also was lead designer for the CDO Day website. The goal was to have the website serve as the central hub of CDO Day where participants came to locate breakout sessions and collect virtual loot like pixel badges for their individual player cards. 

Participants were asked to create their own Player cards with their own avatars and collect virtual badges for viewing breakout sessions and completing side quests throughout the event. 

Check out the web prototype here. 

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