A unified brand experience for the Cree School Board's Higher Learning Conference.

Environmental

The 2nd Edition of ᒥᔪᐲᐦᑕᐦᐋᓱᑖᐤ ᒋᓃᒨᑖᓇᐧᐋᐤ — Higher Learning, Building Capacity Conference (HLBC) was a three-day gathering organized by the Cree School Board, bringing together over 350 Cree post-secondary students and over 600 community members in Ottawa.

Across three days, students connected with peers, graduates, Elders, and potential employers through keynote presentations, panels, workshops, exhibitor visits, and cultural performances — all in a space designed to celebrate community, spark ambition, and promote a strong Cree identity.

Working closely with the CSB, our creative services spanned the full life of the conference — from initial brand development, design, and print production, to onsite creative direction. Every touchpoint was considered: photography, videography, and a rush-edited video produced and screened at the closing ceremony all carried the same visual identity and spirit that we helped shape from the ground up.

The conference identity was rooted in the conferences existing logo — a traditional packsack with an embroidered flower motif. We refreshed the design to promote accessibility and distilled that flower into a bold, graphic element that could scale across every surface, becoming the visual anchor of the entire conference environment.

The motif carried through every layer of the conference including stage panels, wayfinding, printed materials, digital assets, and presentation templates to build a visually cohesive and intentional experience.

In addition to developing the branding into environmental graphics, we designed a custom participant toolkit to consolidate conference information, communicate key resources, and the full three-day agenda in one cohesive piece.

The result was an environment that felt immersive, accesible, and rooted in their existing identity, but expanded in a way that felt fresh and memorable.