Client:
Open Government Products
Scope:
Art Direction, Branding, Design
Year:
2024
A brave new look for H4PG
about.
Each year, officers at the Open Government Products (OGP) team take a break from their core projects to participate in a week-long hackathon (Hack for Public Good, H4PG) — an initiative that encourages experimentation, collaboration, and public good innovation.
To date, every edition of the hackathon introduced a new, standalone logo. While each was creative in its own right, the constant redesign led to brand inconsistency and diluted recognition over time. Alongside H4PG, OGP runs another hackathon called Build for Good (BFG), which has an existing and separate brand identity.
The challenge: to design a unified, enduring logo that could represent the hackathon every year, sit comfortably within OGP’s existing visual system for hackathons, and still capture the unique, energetic spirit of the event.
design and exploration.
Process:
To ensure harmony in the brand and visual language across both OGP, existing BFG hackathon and/or future hackathons, I approached the project via a two-fold strategy:
Adopt the BGF current lockup and design system fully, only changing the icons and colorway to adapt it for H4PG
Keep only the typeface of BFG for consistency but explore the possibility of a different accompanying brand mark
In my design process, I explored several concept directions and presented them for feedback.
Key Insights: While Approach 1 provides visual consistency with existing BFG hackathon design, it was immediately clear that it did not resonate with audience nor capture the spirit of the H4PG. Approach 2 was more sensible and opened up more opportunities for exploration and creativity.
final product.
The final chosen logo for Hack for Public Good 2024 brings together the ideas of collaboration, coding, and intent in a unified, balanced mark. Its interlocking shapes and curved lines convey partnership and empathy, while the parentheses hint at the hackathon’s coding roots.
This design stood out among the other concepts for its ability to capture both the human and technical spirit of the event—grounded, collaborative, and purpose-driven. The result is a unique marks that still feel very related to the other hackathons in the family.
Visually, it also aligns seamlessly with the main OGP logo, maintaining brand coherence while introducing a refreshed, energetic tone for this year’s theme. For the accompanying T-shirt design, I developed all other brand assets and designed the t-shirt based off the concept of “eat / hack / love” — a lighthearted nod to the community’s passion and creative energy.
Click to view event highlights here.
testimonial.
"Thank you so much for bringing your expertise to OGP, for helping us not only make our work look beautiful and professional but also for your clarity and guidance in making our material as approachable and understandable for the citizens we are building for. Whether H4PG, BFG, product marketing, social media, or our international work, you have touched so many different parts in your short time here and really helped elevate our work."
Sarah Espaldon
Head of Marketing and Ops, OGP
