Upstart
The bigger the stage, the better the work.
THE SITUATION
Upstart isn't a company that settles. Not for conventional lending, not for conventional thinking, and certainly not for a conventional event experience. As one of the country's leading AI driven fintechs, publicly traded and built on the belief that smarter data creates better outcomes, the brand holds everything it puts its name on to an exceptionally high standard, including its leadership summits.
When the team engaged MHD Group to develop the full visual environment for their fall leadership summit at Chicago's historic Drake Hotel, the project arrived with a defined scope, a core set of deliverables, and a clear production path. Then, as the best projects often do, it got more interesting. Additional environments came into play. Creative exploration deepened. New event requirements surfaced. What began as a focused engagement grew into something significantly larger.
HOW WE APPROACHED IT
MHD Group took ownership of the summit from first concept to final installation, building a unified event identity system designed to work across every floor, every room, and every moment guests moved through the hotel. Stage environments, wayfinding, registration, LED content, room signage, digital communications, and event collateral: all of it conceived as one cohesive visual language, not a collection of individual pieces.
Getting there took several rounds of concept development, more than 30 client touchpoints, 60 completed assets and five on-site production trips to Chicago. As scope expanded, so did our commitment, and every asset held to the same standard of precision and production readiness the venue demanded. Every decision, from the scale of a stage backdrop to the placement of a directional sign on a stairwell landing, was made with one goal: making sure attendees felt the brand at every turn.
THE RESULT
Every floor. Every room. Every corner of one of Chicago's most iconic hotels, unified by a single visual identity built from scratch. The deliverables came together not as a collection of assets, but as a complete branded world, guiding attendees and elevating every touchpoint of the summit from arrival to close.
Because when the stage gets bigger, the work has to rise with it.
60+
Final design assets delivered
8
Rounds of concept development
30+
Client meetings & touchpoints
5
On-site production trips to Chicago