Over the past six months, I've been planning the third Brand Builders Summit which has grown into the world's largest virtual branding summit.
Every year I seem to forget how much work goes into it.
Partly because I tend to go overboard.
But also because an event of this size involves an extraordinary number of moving parts, from speaker logistics and global scheduling to registration systems and hundreds of custom graphics.
Today, I want to give you a small glimpse behind the scenes, using the 2025 Summit as an example.
There's nothing polished here. This is the real work.
Behind the 2025 Summit
For context, planning a virtual summit typically takes three to six months, sometimes longer.
The major stages include:
Summit Foundations: 1β2 weeks
Planning & Organisation: 1β2 weeks
Core Decisions: 1β2 weeks
Website & Registration: 2β4 weeks
Speaker Outreach: 4β8 weeks
Speaker Onboarding: 2β4 weeks
Sponsors & Affiliates: 4β10 weeks
Presentation Management: 4β8 weeks
Ticketing Setup: 1β2 weeks
Promotion & Advertising: 6β10 weeks
Attendee Engagement: 3β6 weeks
Testing & Optimisation: 1β2 weeks
Registration Management: 4β8 weeks
Event Week: 1 week
Post-Summit Wrap-Up: 1β2 weeks
Many of these stages overlap, but the complete Summit plan still contains more than 250 top level tasks, as seen below.
β
Step 1. The Foundations
Every successful summit starts with the big picture thinking.
Who is the summit for?
What transformation will attendees receive?
What is the central theme and position?
What does success look like?
These decisions shape everything that follows, from the speakers and sessions to the visual identity and attendee experience.
For the 2025 Summit, the central idea was "Become a Star Brand Builder." and the programme was built around four core pillars:
Strategy
Design
Marketing
Business
Once those foundations were clear, I could begin identifying the speakers, topics and experiences needed to deliver that promise.
Me questioning my choices.
2. Identity & Website
Next comes my favourite part: designing the identity and website.
This is where I tend to spend days (weeks?!) exploring visual directions and finding a concept that can carry the entire event.
The 2025 Summit had a space theme, which allowed me to have fun exploring futuristic typography, cosmic graphics and the idea of helping attendees become star brand builders.
β
After designing the website & identity, I ensure that it works across the complete brand system including the website pages, speaker graphics, community graphics, emails, ads, and event materials.
The type system was created using Hyperspace Race, a superfamily from Swell Type, shown below. I pushed the family as far as I could, combining its wide range of weights, widths, alternate characters and italics to create a flexible and distinctive system for the Summit.
Like I said, I tend to go a little overboard.
β
Step 3. The Speakers
While the identity is taking shape, speaker planning is already underway.
My goal is to create a balanced programme across strategy, design, marketing and business, with every session contributing to the transformation promised by the Summit.
I begin with a long list of potential speakers, review dozens of submissions and eventually create the first shortlist.
β
Then the outreach begins.
Cue hundreds of emails.
The truth about running a summit is that much of the work involves managing speaker communication, databases and spreadsheets.
Rows and rows of information covering topics, biographies, headshots, presentations, promotional assets, deadlines and more.
Once speakers begin confirming, the programme starts to take shape.
Every day needs the right balance of topics and formats.
β
Then comes the granular scheduling, including the small matter of coordinating speakers and attendees across global time zones.
β
Astronaut hard at work. Who said logistics couldnβt be fun?
Step 4. Promotion & Advertising
Once the speaker presentations arrive, the promotional machine kicks into gear.
I create hundreds of custom graphics to help each speaker promote their session across social media, email and their own communities.
For the 2025 space theme, I had a little fun by turning every speaker into an astronaut.
Because if you're asking someone to become a star brand builder, you may as well commit to the concept. π
β
Step 5. The Payoff
After months of planning, thousands of brand builders from around the world tuned in to learn from people such as Debbie Millman, David Aaker and Marty Neumeier.
Seeing the community connect, learn and become better brand builders makes all the spreadsheets worthwhile. :)
β
Across the 2024 and 2025 Summits, more than 25,000 brand builders registered. Of the 300+ attendees surveyed, 100% said they would recommend the Summit to a friend, giving the experience an average rating of 9.7 out of 10.
Truly out of this world.
β
The website also received an Awwwards nomination, following the Typography Honors recognition received by the 2024 Summit.
BBA is the ultimate membership for brand builders. Get the support, guidance, and resources to master branding and grow a thriving creative business βtogether. β
β