EDS connects enterprise technology buyers with sellers. CIOs, CISOs and other senior leaders attend free, while technology companies sponsor access to these audiences. Events draw 80 to 100 delegates and around 15 enterprise-level sponsors, with new business coming through cold outreach and word of mouth.
Planning to double its event calendar in 2025, EDS had outgrown its identity. The brief was direct: ‘We need to be professionalised.’ Its website accepted registrations but not payments, and three event streams needed distinct names and identities within the family.
We recommended a full brand programme to give each event stream its own identity and the growing team a consistent system. The engagement combined brand strategy, naming and identity; website design and development; and CRM configuration.
A Brandscape workshop on 22 March 2024 established the direction, with naming signed off six days later. The brand established a shared foundation.
We refined the EDS master logo while retaining its familiar typography. A pixel detail at the tip of the ‘d’ introduced a distinctive reference to technology and data, connecting the established wordmark to the business’s digital focus.
The change preserved recognition while giving the identity a more individual character across web, print and event displays. It became the starting point for a broader, distinctive visual language of colour, typography, imagery and modular icons.
The event system brought CIOX, CISOX and CDOX into a coherent family for information, security and data leaders. Shared typography and the X mark create continuity, while category colours distinguish audiences and carry through into programme and location lockups.
Teams can combine audience, event format and city within the same framework. Each series has its own identity while remaining connected to EDS, maintaining consistency across the wider calendar.
The supporting system combines a dark core palette with bright turquoise and blue accents, disciplined typography, pixel-based icons and dimensional X imagery. Subtle photographic treatments and modular image masks connect human moments with the brand’s digital character.
City-specific skyline photography adds local relevance. Location names sit within layered compositions, bringing depth and a sense of place to event communications. The approach lets EDS adapt its materials across international destinations while retaining a recognisable identity.
Outfly, a London brand, marketing and product agency, delivered EDS’s brand strategy, naming, identity, website and HubSpot CRM set-up in 2024.
It runs enterprise technology events that bring senior buyers, such as CIOs and CISOs, together with the technology companies that sponsor them.
Give each event stream its own name and visual identity under one master brand. For EDS that meant CIOX, CISOX and CDOX, with a shared visual language and templates from wristbands to backdrops.
About two months, from a kick-off in late March 2024 to a planned launch on 21 May 2024.
