Case study · Brand & web
HotHack
Visit the live siteThe brand and website for HotHack — a welcoming, mentor-first hackathon for junior developers in Brisbane. One energetic identity, carried from the homepage to the t-shirts to the media wall.
01 The brief
HotHack is a hackathon for junior developers in Brisbane, pitched as "not your average hackathon." Teams are assembled in advance and paired with experienced industry mentors, so first-timers can get straight into building (and yes, there's pizza). It's run by Lachlan and Ennovate; I handled the brand and all of its marketing collateral: the website, the event t-shirt, and the media wall.
02 What I made
I built HotHack a complete visual identity and took it everywhere it needed to go. Starting in Figma, I designed the logo, palette, and type system, then carried that language across every surface — the website (designed and built), the event t-shirt, and the media wall that backed the room. The site is built in Astro and hosted on Netlify; it's live at hothack.co.
03 Highlights
The brand identity
A simple, single-accent identity: signature red on near-black, large Staatliches headlines, and a few playful starburst and "sizzle" motifs. It stays spare, leaning on colour and type for its personality.
Beyond the screen
The brand wasn't only for screens. I designed the event t-shirt and the media wall behind the stage, and seeing the identity show up in the physical world, on people and on the wall, was easily the most satisfying part of the job.
Built in Astro
The website was my first large-scale Astro project. Content collections drive the mentors, supporters, and problem statements; view transitions keep navigation smooth; and a vanilla-CSS approach keeps it fast and dependency-light on Netlify.
Welcoming by design
Hackathons can be intimidating for juniors. The energetic palette, friendly copy, and open layout are all there on purpose, working to make the event feel like an invitation instead of a test.
Figma for the brand · Astro + content collections for the site · vanilla CSS, view transitions · Staatliches & Space Grotesk · deployed on Netlify.
04 Impact
The event itself was Lachlan and Ennovate's to run; my part was the brand and the site. Even so, the work pulled its weight. The site was the primary funnel for registrations and drew a lot of compliments, and the hackathon ran with around nine teams, each a team lead plus roughly five junior developers.
Juniors landed real roles off the back of it — one was hired onto my own design team at Tanda.
05 What it looked like
The website and the identity, across the surfaces they lived on. (It's still up — have a look.)
06 What I learned
Two things stuck. First, it's immensely satisfying to see your designs in the physical world — and a simple colour scheme with a couple of strong motifs goes a long way. HotHack leans hard on one red and on typography; it doesn't try to do too much, but it has a recognisable vibe. Second, this was my first large-scale Astro project, and it sold me on the tool — content collections, view transitions, and a fast, dependency-light build made it well-suited to a site like this.