AWS Summits

AWS Global Summits are the company's primary field event series — one-day conferences held in major cities worldwide, designed to educate and inspire the cloud computing community. As sole art director for the program, responsibilities span the full creative system: defining visual standards, producing templated assets, governing brand quality across dozens of simultaneous markets, and enabling a global network of internal teams and external agencies to execute independently.

The program operates at a scale where no individual designer can touch every deliverable — the system has to do that work.

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Maintaining visual consistency and brand quality across 90+ events in 23 countries — spanning different languages, venue types, regional agencies, and production timelines — without bespoke creative intervention for every market.

The creative challenge is systemic: build an asset library and design framework robust enough to cover every touchpoint (digital, print, environmental, signage) while flexible enough for each market to adapt to local logistics without breaking the brand.

• Produced 5,000+ templated assets across digital formats (social, banner ads, email, PowerPoint) and physical formats (signage, large-format brand moments, badges, maps).
• Introduced Figma as the primary platform for template creation, documentation, and distribution — enabling self-service execution by non-designers across internal marketing teams and external agencies.
• Developed comprehensive style guide documentation covering usage guidelines, specs, and brand rationale — reducing revision cycles and protecting brand quality at scale.
• Audited the full asset library against AA accessibility standards, adjusting color contrast and graphic legibility across all materials.
• Led weekly alignment with internal stakeholders and agency leads; provided direct creative direction on agency-produced work and maintained final approval on all brand touchpoints.
• Collaborated with cross-functional partners including marketing, event leads, and production vendors to translate creative direction into operational reality across every market.

• U.S. summits in 2023 exceeded attendance goals by 100–150%.
• Total U.S. attendance surpassed 82,000; New York keynote live-streamed to 40,000+ viewers.
• Summits generated more sponsorship revenue than any prior year, despite remaining free to attend.
• Figma-based system reduced reliance on custom creative requests, enabling global teams to execute independently and at speed.
• Consistent brand quality maintained across 23 countries through a single unified system.

Cailin Benton | Project Manager