The British Academy
Future of the Corporation - Purpose Summit
The British Academy’s Future of the Corporation - Purpose Summit took place across the 22nd, 23rd and 24th June 2020. Across five sessions the summit looked at topics such as what previous crises can teach us about solving the problems of people and planet, how investors and owners can support purposeful business and how technological change can serve society through purposeful business. We applied our visual thinking to these talks - capturing the thoughts and insights of experts such as ex-Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney, Trades Union Congress’s General Secretary Frances O'Grady and Professor of Global Economic Governance at Oxford University Professor Ngaire Woods.
The challenge
The extended, broad and complex nature of the summit’s discussions required a highly communicative, engaging and explanatory visual language. It was important that the visual style was consistent across the series while synthesizing and connecting the points made in the discussions. In this event capture, our scribe had to add references and nuance - bringing the points raised into relatable, nuanced and memorable imagery.
The event capture
This three-day summit tackled critical and existential questions in relation to the ways business contributes to the broader problems the world faces, and their solutions. The summit brought together a collection of experts and business leaders. Our task was to capture these hour-long discussions in rich images which not only captured the points and insights made in an evocative and accessible way, but also connected them. Our event captures did this by harnessing the power of visual thinking, creating a set visual notes not only made the information engaging and memorable but also added additional meaning through creative and visual thinking.
The use of visual thinking can be seen across the sessions, in places such as session two’s use of a dinosaur on a tanker to reflect ideas around fossil fuels in an engaging way. Information linking and layering can be seen in the use of session five’s use of a hazard sign to connect different origins of crisis and what they say about how and what society values. There was also a need to keep our visual style consistent across the series of images. This was achieved by following the British Academy’s brand guidelines, augmented by a universal illustration style. The connection between these sessions was further cemented by the same visual device highlighting the aspects the of a purposeful business, included across the session illustrations to outline fundamental points and questions that the summit looked at.
About the client
The British Academy is an independent fellowship of world-leading scholars and researchers. They exist to deepen the understanding of people, societies and cultures. Their aim is to enable everyone to learn, progress and prosper.
The context
Read the Principles for Purposeful Business report and watch the original sessions from the British Academy’s Future of the Corporation - Purpose Summit to find out more.
