Actuate
The developer conference for people who build robots.
Designing Actuate.
Actuate is a developer conference in San Francisco for engineers, builders, and technical leaders deploying robots in the real world. I designed the Actuate logo and served as Creative Director for the conference in 2025 and 2026.
For Actuate 26, Adrian Macneil, Foxglove's CEO, wanted to double the attendance to 1,000 and take over the 40,000-square-foot Gateway Pavilion at Fort Mason. He put it this way:
"We want Actuate to feel like Robot Coachella. It should be completely different from most robotics conferences."
– Adrian Macneil, CEO of Foxglove
Most robotics conferences look like any other tech conference. They usually feel academic and exist to sell hardware. The design brief was to build the opposite of that for Actuate. Adrian wanted a round-the-clock DJ and a music festival vibe, so I knew that we needed a look and feel that was colorful and fun while also being grounded in the world of robotics.
Year: 2025 to 2026
Role: Director of Design, Foxglove
Focus: Brand identity, Event design, Motion and sound
Team: Brand designer, motion designer, sound designer, wayfinding designer (Foxglove)
Building the team.
As Creative Director, I hired a small team from outside the usual Bay Area tech conference vendor pool: a brand designer from Italy, and a motion designer and a sound designer, both from Berlin. All three have a background in festivals and cultural events as well as corporate work. Sunnie Lee, a designer on my team at Foxglove, created the wayfinding.
Early Iteration
We focused on design solutions that represent movement, which is what robots do in the real world. We iterated on numerous shapes and textures to find the right balance: images and patterns that felt abstract and implied motion at the same time.
Final results.
The final direction was a set of unique waveforms with a grainy texture and color palette that evoked 1970s sci-fi book covers, which we knew would resonate with our audience.
Tradeoffs led to a better intro video.
Going into the project, I wanted to make a big first impression on attendees when they entered the Gateway Pavilion and picked up their badges. I decided to cover as much of the entrance as possible with bright colors and planned to use projection mapping on Gateway's two large walls near the entrance. After some research about how light acts in the pavilion and conversations with the team at Fort Mason, I made the decision to set this idea aside. It was hard to let it go, since projection mapping lends itself to depicting motion, but it seemed risky that the walls would be washed out by the summer light, even if we covered up the skylights in the venue.
Letting go of projection mapping near the entrance freed up resources for an intro video to open the conference. I asked our motion designer to explore different visual elements from the brand. Then I organized those pieces into a coherent flow with a rough storyboard, which we refined and handed off to our sound designer to score. The intro video wound up being one of the most successful design elements we created.
Selling out Actuate 26.
Actuate 26 was a big success for Foxglove. Our original attendance goal was 1,000, and we ended up at 1,500 and sold out, thanks to a strong social media push built on the advertising graphics, website, and social media assets my team created.
Team
Ellis Neder - Creative Director
Silvia Sguotti - Brand Design
Sunnie Lee - Wayfinding Design
Barney Fagan - Motion Design
Ana Roman - Sound Design