Building visual worlds: how tech brands are evolving.
Is a brand a logo, a colour palette, an illustration style, or all of the above? Or something completely different? Are there set of deliverables that can be packaged together to identify a brand? And is that package applicable at scale?
I think a brand is something quite different than everything mentioned above. A brand, even in tech, is no longer just a user demographic chart, a group of hex codes, and a wordy brand guideline. A brand is a visual world, tied together by a consistent strategy and an overarching narrative. I’ve seen a spike in this kind of “world building”, highly art directed brand campaigns emerging in tech recently, and there’s a ton we can learn from them.
Superpower by Daybreak
Daybreak is one of those up and coming studios that you gotta keep an eye out for. Every project they release seems to outdo their prior, and they’ve built up quite a dream team to execute brand projects across touch-points with 3D, motion, and product design systems. More importantly, they’ve gotten the key to world building nailed: coming up with a strong, scalable brand narrative.
With Superpower, the narrative was to build the next “beacon for health”. Everything surrounds that narrative. The logo, imagery, website, etc. They’ve gone beyond the traditional pieces of collateral to build a genuinely refreshing art direction that almost feels more like a lifestyle brand. The frosted UI, the warm palette, futuristic imagery…even the use of the zipper here feels super in-line with the messaging.
Next Legacy by Play Studio
Play is another studio I look up to. They’re super well established and have a great track record of putting out thought-out and well implemented brand projects.
The Next Legacy rebrand felt like an instant hit to me. There are a lot of cheesy ways to showcase “premium” or “luxury” in tech. Play does it effortlessly with this new identity: carving the logotype lettering on concrete, the mini athletic merch look-book, the trophy 3D render animation. Everything, from website mockups to social cards to physical spaces, feels like it’s under the same “brand roof” without trying too hard.
How to build a visual world
Now, building a visual world isn’t just about throwing out merch or having large banners or event collateral. it’s about creating small pieces of collateral that show the brand in a broader and extended capacity. Using key pieces of the brand narrative and implementing them at scale. For Superpower, that could be structuring the website flow of information like a spine. This ties into their broader narrative surrounding health literacy.
For Next Legacy, using the dotted lines as their illustration style across digital and physical touchpoints, including in the lining of their golf caps. These little elements tie a brand together and help create a visual world that’s far more impactful than any generic brand kit.
The first question I’d ask myself is: what ties the brand together? And how does that reflect the narrative?
I feel that anything could tie a brand together when it’s implemented at scale across touchpoints — an iconography style with sharp corners is useless on its own but when placed next to a website with sharp section corners, unrounded buttons, geometric typography, and a block illustration system, it starts to make a lot more sense.
Think about your brand holistically, and find ties that will help bridge gaps within your brand materials. How can we make this t-shirt and this landing page feel like they’re in the same family? That link could be anything:
- Glass: Frosted UI and imagery of the sauna for a wellness app
- Scribbles: Hand-drawn infographics on website, product, and marketing materials for a teaching platform
- Dotted lines: Golf cap outer lining, section dividers, button styles for a luxury company
- 3D art: Embroidered branded wallet and 3D buttons effects within the product…
The possibilities are endless. I’m looking forward to seeing tech branding evolve with increased brand touchpoints, and a generally more extensive execution of brand narratives.
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