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PopTech x COLLINS

For more than two decades, the PopTech Conference has drawn a global, eclectic crowd to the idyllic seaside town of Camden, Maine. Scientists, technologists, humanitarians, designers, artists, and innovators—people from all walks of life—gather for three immersive days of presentations, debates, fireside chats, music-making, and unexpected moments of inspiration.

PopTech is not just a conference; it’s a collision of minds and ideas, a space where those who defy simple categorization come to challenge, explore, and imagine a collective future that stretches beyond individual ambition.

COLLINS collaborated with the festival design and creatively direct the event with a timely theme: “Instigate.” Not content to adapt to the world as it is, the conference asked us to ignite change, to explore how friction and conflicting viewpoints can be the spark for transformation.

Our design embraced this concept head-on, focusing on the power of subjective perspectives and the productive tension between opposing forces.

The creative system we developed played with the idea of fragmentation—of many parts coming together to form a whole. Through this visual language, we posed the questions at the heart of the conference: How can opposition drive progress? How can we find optimism in the friction of conflicting ideas?

Our work included a film, identity, microsite, environmental graphics, wayfinding, and print materials that employed deliberate, striking fractures.

These elements weren’t meant to disrupt Camden’s quiet charm, but rather to energize it, to inject sparks of change into the air.

In doing so, we aimed to capture the very essence of PopTech: a space where disruption is not feared but celebrated, and where every clash of ideas offers a new path forward.

Credits

Ben Crick

Megan Bowker

Sanuk Kim

Taylor Holland

Tom Elia

Young G Woo

Brian Collins