Designer Hikes

The Designer Hikes Brand Identity Challenge

How it all started

All things happen for a reason. Ideas are born out of our knowledge and feelings we experience. They are the seed of creativity and creation. Sometimes, one idea morphs into something else, as it did for us with this initiative.

Designer Hikes started because we wanted to host an unforgettable challenge on Bravemark.

Initially, I had the idea of hosting a brand brief challenge to create a fictional brand based on a wild idea—an idea that would be fun for everyone to work on. As designers, we often don’t get to work on projects that are as fantastic as we would like them to be. So, making something unique and fun was essential.

I had a few wild ideas, such as a brand brief challenge for a Disco Club on Mars, a Hoverboard Racing League or Microdosing Hiking Tours. They all seemed quite fun, so I reached out to the Twitter community to see what they thought.

However, I felt it was missing an element that would provide value to the design community, so I decided to let the idea settle in for a while.

I had always wanted to do something for the graphic design community, so I thought this could be an opportunity to turn this brand brief around and create something tangible to positively impact the design community.

After thinking it through, the idea morphed into creating a global nonprofit community of graphic designers who would organize in-person meetups in their towns to get together and go on nature hikes.

The idea behind the community would be to get designers of all sorts and levels together to have a bit of fun and get to know each other in person. The hikes would be the perfect excuse to get designers to meet in their locality and build friendships and connections while taking time away from their computers and doing a healthy walk in nature.

I found the idea exciting and fulfilling, as did my Bravemark teammates. I also started telling other designers about it, and everyone I mentioned it to agreed it was a great initiative. Ian Paget and Michal Malewicz were some of the first to show me their support for the idea and gave me the confidence to pursue it.

It quickly became apparent that we had to emphasize that this community would be a non-profit and should be owned and organized by its members. It would be like an open-source or DAO community, where there is no owner, and everything is decided together as a group.

Bravemark would have nothing to do with it more than act as a sponsor along with other designers or companies that would like to contribute to the cause.

The community would need a core team of organizers and ambassadors to help run the day-to-day activities. Anyone would be welcome to contribute and provide their input to help the community evolve so the adventure started.

Kicking things off

With the idea in place, I started looking for sponsors to support the initiative and collaborate by providing a giveaway for the different prize bundles.

I was astonished to see how many companies were so quick to support the initiative. I had never done anything like this before, and it was really a great experience seeing so many top graphic design companies get involved. The prize bundles included discounts for premium fonts, textures, mockups, books, tutorials, coaching sessions etc. Everyone who saw the prize bundle was well impressed with what was offered.

Here is a list of the sponsors that took part.

Markus Daum, Hype4Academy, Ben Burns & The Futur, LogoGeek, True Grit Textures, Benditio Mokcups, Designers Foundry, Pangram Pangram, LS Graphics and Design Buddies

Once the judges and sponsors were in place, we created a simple landing page with the brief, details, rules and prizes and started promoting the challenge everywhere we could.

You can visit the challenge page here.

https://www.bravemark.co/designer-hikes-brand-brief-challenge/

After the first week of running the challenge, I met with Mr. Ben Burns from The Futur and was surprised to see that he loved the idea and wanted to participate as a judge and sponsor.

He was a great addition to the challenge and contributed by offering a one-to-one coaching session for the first winner prize as well as his famous Brand Style Guide Kit for the top three prizes.

As a long-time fan of The Futur, I was extremely thrilled that he had come on board to help us with the initiative.

The submissions

As the challenge continued to evolve,  we started seeing a lot of interest from various designers.

We had given the contestants a month to submit their concepts, and as the deadline approached, more submissions started to come in.

You can see all the concepts that were submitted here:

https://beta.bravemark.co/discover/challenges/designer-hikes

The winners

Once the challenge was over, the judges cast their votes, and the winners were selected.

Here is a list of participants with their scores:

🥇Anthon Johansson (107 Points) Visit

🥈SECOND PRIZE Eli K (89 Points) Visit

🥉 THIRD PRIZE Christine Wild (87 Points) Visit

Beáta Szőcs (84 Points) Visit
James West (83 Points) Visit
Stephan Carroll (73 Points) Visit
Daniela Siska (73 Points) Visit
Andrea Giorgi (72 Points) Visit
John Fink (68 Points) Visit
Rhys Morgan (63 Points) Visit
Kushi Subrahmanya (51 Points) Visit
Mayko Raba(40 Points) Unpublished

You can see all the scores from the different judges here:

https://dour-cress-64c.notion.site/Designer-Hikes-Brand-Brief-Competition-3c27dcdafb6e4377b827c74c3b1d4a1f

I believe everyone who took part had a great time. I talked with many participants, and everything I heard was super positive. It’s been a humbling experience and also one of connecting that has connected us even more with the design community.

I greatly appreciate everyone who participated, including the sponsors and judges. Hosting this challenge has been a wonderful experience, although I’ve learned that organizing it isn’t easy and requires a lot of dedication.

What's next for Designer Hikes

Now that Designer Hikes is brand-ready, we have started implementing it, and I currently organizing the first Designer Hikes event here in Spain to walk the trail of Barranco Blanco.

If you want to see more details about the event, you can go here. https://lu.ma/f1tj2icr I will make sure to share pics once we have completed it.

I encourage other designers interested in organizing a Designer Hikes event in their location or helping as a contributor to contact me at hello @ designerhikes.com

I hope we, as a community, can grow this initiative worldwide.

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