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Industry: Education

DesignThinkers 2024

designthinkers.com
Services Deliverables
  • Website

Bringing together a community of creatives

DesignThinkers is Canada’s largest design conference, organized by the Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD). Offering in-person and virtual experiences, DesignThinkers hosts annual conferences in Toronto and Vancouver, bringing together creatives and designers nationwide.

Features

WordPress CMS
Custom theme
Events calendar integration
Pheedloop registration
Custom animations
Google analytics

Website based on Whitman Emorson’s branding

Adapting a dynamic aesthetic to the digital space

Each year features a theme focusing on industry trends and opportunities, with this year’s titled ‘Into The Rabbit Hole’. Envisioned by Whitman Emorson, our design partner—the concept is supported by various collage and optical illusion graphic elements, reinforcing the idea of a dreamlike, unpredictable, and unexpected world of discovery.

Graphic elements supporting the ‘Into The Rabbit Hole’ theme

Creating a frictionless user experience

Through user testing and strategic discussion, the overall user experience was enhanced by identifying moments of friction, improving user flow, and increasing registration conversions. By improving the existing UI, optimizing page layout, and creating a stronger focus on speaker content, users can more easily navigate key areas of the website including event schedule, featured speakers, registration, and travel accommodations.

Unique colour palettes are used to differentiate pages for the Vancouver and Toronto events
  • 2.3K delegates attended in 2023
  • 30 editions and counting in 25 years
  • no. 1 graphic design event in Canada
  • 2 cities visited per year

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Dementia In New Light

dementiainnewlight.com
Services Deliverables
  • Logo
  • Website
  • Illustration
  • Social Media
  • Lesson Development

Shedding light into the world of dementia

Dementia in New Light is a digital learning experience that builds upon the research-driven production, Cracked: New Light on Dementia. By following individuals with dementia and their families, it aims to challenge the stigma around dementia and its care. Forge collaborated with a diverse team of researchers and artists and applied co-design methodologies to create an accessible educational experience, fostering a reimagining of dementia and improved support for those impacted.

Features

Headless CMS
React framework
WebGL 3D render with custom shaders
User account portal
Analytics

Emotive narratives, challenging stigma

In our initial discovery phase, we met with the project stakeholders, care providers and individuals affected by dementia to understand how to spread awareness and educate people better about dementia and its effects. We listened to each individual’s story about their lived experiences, engaged in co-design discussions to shape our digital learning outcome and fostered an open, inclusive forum for collaboration. This discovery process uncovered invaluable information from diverse perspectives to enrich the outcome of our digital learning experience.

Two people sitting in a boardroom.
A group of people discussion research, while looking a table.
Snapshots from our discovery and research synthesis process

An engaging and informative experience

Our core objective was to enable learners to explore a wide range of topics related to dementia care while providing them with insights into the daily lives of persons living with dementia and their families, fostering empathy and understanding throughout their journey. To ensure an intuitive user journey, we developed detailed site architecture and wireframes, meticulously planning how learners would navigate the content.

An image showing the site architecture with information hierarchy
A circle diagram that shows the relationship between various topics
Detailed sitemap for a complex website and a small sample from our extensive discovery
wireframe image of the login screen
a sketch exploring the theme of murmuration, or clusters of meaning
wireframe showing the idea behind the unique navigation
Wireframes to start defining the experience

Inspiring others to share their stories

The experience presents content in a number of ways and invites the learner to reflect on what they’ve seen and challenge their perceptions. Forge built a custom application backed by a headless CMS that allows the client to update content as needed.

A close up of one of the topics in focus. The topic is shown as a crystal-like gem floating in space
Another close up of one of the topics in focus. The topic is shown as a crystal-like gem floating in space
Topics browser which acts as the main navigation
The stigma topic expanded, to show the sub topics. The topics are shown as crystal-like gems floating in space
The Possibilities topic expanded, to show the sub topics. The topics are shown as crystal-like gems floating in space

Shifting perspective through interactive storytelling

Learners are immersed through dynamic audio and visual learning moments while incorporating scenes from the original production. Learners can explore various topics surrounding dementia care and see things from the perspective of the person living with dementia and their families.

Illustration of a radio
Illustration of open eyes with eyebrows
Illustration of a bike wheel
Custom illustrations to help tell the stories
A desktop screen that shows what the video player looks like
Learning modules to educate users about dementia
An image gallery is shown in one of the subtopics
A handwritten quote in one of the subtopics

Promoting engagement through tracked user progress

Learners have the ability to create personal accounts where engagement can be tracked and referenced throughout the experience, allowing them to take in content at their own pace and feel a sense of progress. Content can also be easily saved and referenced at any time.

A screen showing that the Stigma topic is half completed.
A screen showing learning modules the user has saved to their profile
A screen showing the relationship topic with its sub topics and indicators to show which sections have been completed.
A playful display to keep track of your progress within the lesson plans
A desktop view of the Relationships topic, showing the sub topics and completion status of each topic.
  • 597K of people are living with dementia in Canada as of 2020
  • 61.8% of those living with dementia are women
Forge is a ‘dream team’! They developed an award-winning, multi-media digital learning experience about dementia-related stigma that deepens learners’ engagement. Despite the ever increasing complexities of its design and build, their team never disappointed – they model the very best of efficiency, ingenuity, and participatory design.
Pia Kontos, PhD, Senior Scientist, Professor

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Canada Ukraine Foundation

Services Deliverables
  • Bus Wrap
  • Mobile App
  • Video Production
  • Lesson Development
  • Illustration
  • Motion Graphics
  • Logo
  • Website

From darkness to light: shedding light on the Holodomor

To educate students about the 1930’s Ukrainian genocide known as the ‘Holodomor’, Forge helped transform a touring bus into a mobile classroom for the Canada Ukraine Foundation. Its purpose – to raise awareness and deliver a message of hope to high school students across North America, inspiring them to become bastions of truth.

Human rights education for 
a new generation

Forge worked closely with educators to develop an engaging presentation that would articulate this powerful lesson on injustice and human rights in a hands-on fashion. As the students are taught about the horrific events of this historical mass starvation and the reasons behind it, they are given an opportunity to investigate, discover, discuss, and reflect on the topic.

Students visiting the classroom in the bus

Reinventing the classroom experience

The students are fully immersed in the experience from the moment they step onto the bus. A 24’ screen is used to display stirring visuals, while 32 iPads simultaneously respond to the large scale screen. A Mac Pro server and three custom-built applications communicate in real-time to seamlessly run the presentation.

Large scale screen to deliver the lesson plan in a theatre style presentation
Each student is given an iPad to follow the lesson plan and complete exercises
Branding to define the meaning behind the word Holodomor

Creating change for future generations

This fusion of technologies and interactive content defines an entirely new way to conduct a lesson, allowing the facilitator and the students to actively engage with each other, as they share an emotional journey. The tour continues to spread its message, leaving a lasting impression wherever it visits, which will hopefully lead to positive change for the future.

A custom bus, configured to expand to allocate space for a full classroom theatre
Awards

  • A’Design Awards (Education and Training) Gold, 2018.

  • Apex Awards (Education and Healthcare) Gold, 2018.

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DesignThinkers 2023

designthinkers.com
Services Deliverables
  • Website

Developing a seamless digital conference experience

DesignThinkers is Canada’s largest design conference, organized by the Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD). Offering in-person and virtual experiences, DesignThinkers hosts annual conferences in Toronto and Vancouver, bringing together creatives and designers nationwide.

Features

WordPress
Custom theme
Schedule creation
Custom animations

Website based on Sid Lee’s branding

Exploring an open-source design approach

Each year features a theme focusing on industry trends and opportunities, with this year’s titled ‘Question Tomorrow’. Envisioned by Sid Lee, our design partner, all elements are largely open-source, free assets, and purposefully selected to support the direction of the conference. Working closely with Sid Lee and RGD, the development team at Forge brought the digital experience to life by implementing a refreshed theme into the website.

Open-source illustrations

Future-proofing the codebase for years to come

We undertook a thorough analysis and modernization effort to update the legacy codebase to meet the latest web standards, guaranteeing the website would continue functioning for years. This optimization effort increased the longevity of the website’s codebase, ensuring that it can continue to adapt to changing business needs and technical environments.

One website, two cities – Vancouver and Toronto

Implementing industry best practices into WordPress

While implementing the refreshed design, the team at Forge improved the semantic code throughout the site by better defining different sections and making the front end more accessible. We enhanced the WordPress administration interface to make it more user-friendly, streamlining the content editing experience and providing greater flexibility to site administrators.

Bold graphics to promote Canada’s largest Design Conference
  • 2.1K delegates attended in 2022
  • 48 speakers from 7 countries
  • 26 editions and counting in 22 years
  • no. 1 graphic design event in Canada
  • 2 cities visited per year

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