Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2024 Istanbul through the eyes of its designer

As the organization’s designer, I was very excited that this year the Wikimedia CEE Meeting was held in Istanbul, my home city. I would like to briefly share with you my experiences as both a member of the organizing team and a participant of this event.

Eyes on Istanbul!

In 2023, I was a designer in the organization team of the Wikimedia CEE Meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia. At that time, I was very excited when I was given the task of creating the visible face of such a big organization. But I was much more excited when I heard on stage that Istanbul was the host city for the 2024 meeting.

Then Başak and Zafer from WMTR took the stage to give a presentation about Istanbul. The presentation read “Let’s Break the Record”. Yes, I can say that we broke the record at the 2024 meeting! With more than 190 participants, CEE Meeting 2024 Istanbul welcomed the most participants of any CEE meeting since 2012.¹

We need a new face, a new excitement

At the closing session of the meeting in Tbilisi, when it was announced that next year’s meeting would be in Istanbul, the logo I had designed for the candidacy process was projected on the screen. It was a logo in which I used Wikimedia’s classic color palette, called the “The Legacy Palette”, and squares of different sizes came together to form the Maiden’s Tower. The fact that each square in the logo was of different colors and sizes, and that something came out when they came together, reflected the culture of togetherness.

But for the conference in Istanbul we had to come up with something different. So, instead of the Legacy color palette, I created a neon color palette where the main colors are navy blue, pink and purple. This palette reflected the energy of Istanbul and the power of free knowledge. I kept the stylized Istanbul lettering in the form of the candidacy logo, but replaced the Maiden’s Tower with a bridge. I created this bridge out of disparate lines, which gives the logo a natural and flexible feel and is in line with the slogan of our conference, “A Bridge to Knowledge”.

Our theme is clear, let’s get to work

The 2024 organizing team unanimously agreed that our new theme would be “A Bridge to Knowledge” and now it was time to slowly put it into practice.

The main design language of the conference consisted of random lines wrapping real Istanbul photographs. These lines encircling the elements related to Istanbul represent continuity, excitement and conveying knowledge. In other words, the power of free knowledge surrounds the whole of Istanbul. The photographs, usually with a black and white filter on a pink to purple background, created a harmonious contrast. But occasionally I also used elements in color.

Also, as the conference approached, I created a series of images to give attendees a sense of Istanbul, which I shared in the Telegram group of the conference, accompanied by brief information and links to Wikipedia articles.

Support for the theme again from Istanbul itself

As we move forward to the day of the conference, we now have not only digital but also physical conference materials. I designed a lot of things like the souvenirs and venue decorations to tie in with the main theme, but we also needed auxiliary elements that would tell the participants about Istanbul and give them a sense of fun.

For this, I designed a set of 32 icons with some elements from Turkish and Istanbul culture. During the conference, the most popular icon was of course the cat icon. Because Istanbul is a cat city 🙂

There is also one more point that I should not leave out. I think that this conference is different from all other conferences. Because Piyanist, Yasakrami and Sercan Peşan have composed music specifically for this conference. The Piyanist describes the composition process as follows:

When I was first approached to compose music for the conference, I was excited. Because I had composed soundtracks for different short films and documentaries before, but since this proposal was related to Wikipedia, which is my own area of interest, I would be composing on our behalf. It was a very valuable and honorable offer for me. It felt very nice to hear this music in the background during the breaks during the conference.

– Piyanist, September 30, 2024

I was also informed by Piyanist that this music includes piano, harp and string orchestra from western music, and kanun, ney and santur from eastern music. Frankly, I think this music is quite beautiful for a conference that takes place in a place like Istanbul, which connects two continents and cultures. You can listen to the composed music from this link.

Making a conference in a living history

I was also excited to organize such a big conference, where we hosted people from many countries and communities, at the Müze Gazhane, which is a living history. For this reason, I have always designed in a way that respects the history of the space, but in a way that reflects the energy of Istanbul and free knowledge. In a way, I mixed the energy of history and the energy of today.

We have a team of volunteers at our side who add strength to our strength!

Of course, we did not complete the conference process alone. Volunteers who contribute to Wikimedia projects in their daily lives, who may never have seen each other before, who only know each other’s usernames, have put their hands on the line for Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2024 Istanbul and helped both the organizing team and the participants as conference volunteers.

We would like to thank our conference volunteer friends who helped us before, during and after the conference and who wanted to be a part of this story!

Let’s immortalize this moment with interviews

Together with İsna, the founder of Üsküdar University Wiki Student Club, we interviewed many participants during the conference. When we asked them the first thing that came to their mind about Istanbul, of course, most of them said cats 🙂

When we asked them what they had learned at this conference, the response was very positive. This caused me to be happy from time to time with the gimbal in my hand during the recording. I hope we left a good memory for the participants with these interviews.

Result

As a result, based on the opinions of the participants, I think I realized a successful design process. In such events, I usually try to incorporate elements from the culture of the location of the event into the theme. Because this is actually a way of promoting cultures with “free knowledge” and supporting free knowledge with graphic design.

As Wikimedia Community User Group Turkey, I believe that we have successfully completed Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2024 Istanbul and that our participants have learned a lot from Istanbul, “A Bridge to Knowledge”. I would like to thank our volunteers who took part in this conference, all our participants who added color to our conference with their presentations and participation, and the cats of Istanbul who motivated and made us happy with their presence.

Footnotes

1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Meeting#Wikimedia_CEE_Meeting ↩︎