Hola Madrid
State of the Word 2023 was hosted in the beautiful Palacio Neptuno in Madrid, Spain, on December 11th. This was the first ever State of the Word event held outside of the United States.
Our design process is unique and collaborative, involving many team members rather than a single lead. The event’s visual direction and aesthetic resulted from months of collaboration between sponsored Automattic contributors and community members, aiming to capture the joy and celebratory spirit of the local community and global WordPress enthusiasts.
A First Point of Reference
For the Madrid project, we began by engaging with locals and those who have lived in Madrid. These conversations revealed key symbols of the city and more. We discovered Madrid’s typeface, Chulapa, and were awestruck by the artworks created for the San Isidro festival over the years. We also admired the work of Cruz Novillo, a testament to Madrid’s rich artistic heritage.
Paint
Our objective was to thoughtfully revive the styles of renowned Spanish artists like Velázquez, Goya, and Picasso. We delved into abstract interpretations of their work, which you can see in the gallery below. This exercise immersed us in their work, inspiring us to creatively integrate similar elements into our designs for State of the Word.
A Starting Direction
Once we identified the correlated elements, symbols, and colors representing Madrid’s unique personality and heritage, along with WordPress symbolism and colors, everything started to come together.
We drew inspiration for our color palette and collage applications from various resources, including patterns like “pata de gallo” and red dots, among others.
Misdirections
We explored other design directions but found they didn’t quite align with our initial aim of capturing a touch of Madrid and, more largely, Spain’s heritage in our work.
I would rather be an ordinary painter working from life than be the greatest copyist on earth.
Diego Velázquez
This quote aptly captures our mindset during the design exploration for the State of the Word. Encapsulating our approach perfectly, it remained our guiding principle throughout the event. Both Automattic and WordPress community teams tirelessly pursued that ‘one more thing’ to create a distinct and memorable visual identity for the event.
Resolution
As December 11 approached, we created a series of assets for social media campaigns and event promotion. Some of these can be seen below.
The Website
We were excited to publish the new State of the Word landing page, which was made possible by a fantastic team; the collaborative effort resulted in a dynamic, future-ready platform. As with any ongoing project, the page will be updated yearly with fresh content and links to essential information.
The Event and Preparations
Many contributors worked hard to make the following assets happen: venue preparation, lightning, materials selection, and other key aspects of the event not shown in this post. Thanks to the community members and the Automattic team for all their efforts.
Broadcast Animation
Here’s a glimpse of the assets we made for the live broadcast intro.
Limited Posters
A set of limited edition posters were made as a surprise for attendees, offering them a memorable gift from their experience.
Brush(ing)
Remember that quote from Velázquez? After some internal reviews of the work done, we simply couldn’t miss the opportunity to make our brushes more natural, unique, and honest.
Keynote
A day before the Keynote, we developed these brushes that became essential to our Keynote design. You can see them in action in the slides below.
This State of the Word is a step change from any other I’ve seen. The game is being raised.
Jamie Pootlepress, YouTuber and WP Plugin builder
Final Act
On the day of the event, our initial vision and efforts culminated in a spectacular event that attendees, in person and online, praised as the best annual keynote yet.
If you haven’t yet watched the State of the Word 2023, you can do so now by visiting our YouTube channel or via the link below.
Credits
We are immensely grateful to have worked with numerous talented individuals on this special event. Not only was this State of the Word the first outside of the US, but it also coincided with the 20th anniversary of the WordPress project. Here’s to another twenty and more!
We extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who played an integral role in the design journey of State of the Word 2023. In particular:
- Rocío Valdivia and Chloe (@cbringmann), for the relentless help from the beginning through end, on everything.
- For the beautiful handmade brushes, Francisco Vera (@fcoveram), alongside Keynote deck onsite help.
- Joen (@joen), for invaluable feedback, insightful comments, and design assistance on the inaugural SOTW website, broadcast assets production, and more.
- Henrique (@henriqueiamarino), thank you for helping design the iconic landing page.
- And Nick (@ndiego) and Steve (@dufresnesteven), thank you for bringing the landing page to life!
- Thank you, Nicholas (@eidolonnight), Dan (@dansoschin), and the Automattic sponsored marketing team for helping craft content for the event’s website, broadcast content, and promote the event for the most views in State of the Word history.
- Nebojsa (@nebojsajurcic), thank you for helping with animating the demo video contents of the deck and live broadcast intro/outros.
- Tino (@tinobarreiro) for helping with deck assets, the deck itself, venue assets, production setup, and much more.
- Pablo (@pablohoneyhoney), thank you for helping with the design direction and deck execution.
- Fede Padilla, and Nilo Velez for your help capturing the event with your photography. Photo cred!
- Fernando Perez (@fernandojoseperez) and Pablo Postigo (@iamposti), for helping us learn more about the culture of Madrid.
- Adam (@admwgn), thank you for the lovely Howdy-Hola animation.
- Monika (@monikamonotype), many thanks for your help reviewing and editing this post.
Last but not least, thank you to the Spanish WordPress community for greeting this year’s State of the Word with warmth and hospitality.
Automattic Design 