Process Breakdown: Developing a mini-brand for Lyxos.

Lyxos is a startup accelerator and venture partner working with Nordic consumer business to help them reach the next level of scale. Lyxos backs high-potential startups at the earliest stages, equips them with industry standard resources, and provides them support + network opportunities to help them grow to their maximum potential.

We partnered with Lyxos for a branding sprint and min-identity to help them get things kicked off with a blast.

This is my second process breakdown. If you like this style, let me know :)

Moodboards

With this project, time was of the essence. The client did not want to waste time on back and forth “vision” documents and wanted us to get something out quick, and iterate from there. So, after a few conversations about how we wanted Lyxos to feel we jumped right into prepping some mood-boards.

Direction One

This was the easiest option here: minimal, black an white, led by typography. The client really wanted this brand to be in the background and let the content speak for itself. So, for the first direction, we kept references to simple print and web collateral with very minimal use of illustration and imagery.

Although the identity was pretty minimal, there are still a lot of stand-out elements that can work really well with one another. The geometric shape on the blue background poster there is a great example of how a simple element can bring personality into the layout without having to try too hard. I also love the block typography on the AWAY frame, and find that it would work really well with the illustration style if implemented properly.

Direction Two

I call this direction “overpriced hotel cafe”. It’s definitely the most “out there” mood-board with a ton of interesting references, but I still feel that it would work pretty well for a brand like Lyxos. The editorial typography and line illustration style is a bit overplayed imo in recent tech rebrands, but I feel the use of mixed-media imagery + calligraphy as brand accents could have given the brand a bit of a unique touch

To be honest, I really love this direction. It reminds me of a laid back, modest, low-stress office. The work is intense, but the vibe is chill. But, I kinda knew from the get-go that this mood-board wasn’t making it past the first round since it’s a little too out there with too many visual elements for the client.

I would have also loved to explore this style in dark mode which could have been something interesting. Oh well.

Direction Three

This direction is a little all over the place at first glance, but they all come together to make this highly detailed, yet minimal brand concept. When I was putting together these references, I couldn’t help but think about how I could build out an entire visual system of patterns, symbols, and brand marks. I love the idea of taking a stamp or a symbol which can be implemented across collateral as a brand piece. Maybe that could’ve also been the logomark. I also thought of ideas on how we could use motion blur or some kind of image distortion to build a style for imagery.

I’d say this concept is the most fleshed out of four (to me at least) since I can feel it coming together for Lyxos. I’m taking some of these ideas into future projects for sure. The only big issue I have with this concept is that it can come off looking like a generic Cosmos collection; the pieces have to blend together meaningfully.

Direction #4 -> selected

This direction was probably the simplest and the closest to the client’s needs from our conversations. I knew this would be the one that would get picked, which is why I let my imagination run wild on the other concepts in case they spark a new direction in the clients’ mind.

In these references, the brand is a lot more digestible as a venture capital company. The choice of collateral probably played a big part but also the minimal use of illustrative elements. The colour palette doesn’t seem overly trendy and expressive. There’s a strong focus on content and all illustrative elements are purposeful. I also liked the tree bark illustration style in the Arcadia poster in the middle there; it’s a good example of how to implement an expressive element without coming off playful.

The client chose the 4th direction; 1st direction came in second place.

Brand Directions

Now that we were aligned on the mood-boards and the visual references were set, we were able to move pretty fast on developing two competing brand directions. Since this was a mini-brand, our focus was on setting the tone for the brand on each of the presentations, developing a core brand system and executing it on pieces of relevant collateral (web, social, print, etc)

Brand Direction #1 -> selected

On the first concept, the goal was to create something that just instantly felt right for Lyxos. No fancy design trends or tricks, the client wanted a brand that could scale with the least amount of effort. We created this simple, corporate identity that does exactly that.

Strong primary blue, dimmed secondary palette, line icon system, spacious layouts, geometric illustrations, and line patterns. It takes ideas that were defined in earlier references and puts them together in one cohesive identity.

One challenge here was pushing the client to accept the brand accents as part of the identity as the client was strict on having a minimal identity for all means and purposes. I wanted to incorporate the brand patterns since they really bring together the layouts and act as a glue for the entire identity. They also signify a system of large replicable items with one item (company, person, idea) standing out from the rest.

This concept was instantly accepted because it solved the creative problem and offered an identity that reflected Lyxos’ values and vision. Now, time for the one that will forever live in my rejected concept graveyard.

Brand Direction #2 -> rejected

RIP rejected concept. I think this is still one of my fave rejected concepts from this year. This exploration was much simpler than the first using 2 core brand acents: a sharp lime primary colour & the use of the semi-hand drawn, semi geometric symbols / icons.

The contrast with the serif typography and the black-white layouts really made the branding stand out in a fun, tech-y way. This brand, to me, feels professional but also gives me “hackathon” vibes.

My goal with the shapes here were to create them as brand assets that could be implemented at scale across everything. If we’d gone with this direction, I’d planned to have created a gallery of these stamp/symbol/icon/illustration assets to use on the website, slides, social media, etc. This kind of calls back to the accents we saw on the 3rd mood-board where there are a bunch of organic geometric shapes in play. What I love the most about these shapes are that they can be used as small icons as well as large-scale illustrations / layout fillers.

I would have also loved to work with a 3D designer who could further bring these out with some nice bezels and subtle animations.

I think these ideas were super cool and maybe something I can incorporate in some way or the other in a future design. For now, the design graveyard keeps the concept.

Final Brand Presentation

After finalizing the brand direction, we moved pretty quickly into getting a brand guide, illustration set, and landing page (coming soon!) ready for Lyxos, as well as preparing any other additional assets needed.

I think this brand has a lot of potential to scale up with it’s visual system, and I’m excited to see how it evolves over the years.

Glad to have jammed on this project with the Lyxos team, and I’ll update this blog when the website is live on their end. That’s all I got for now.

If you liked this style of presentation / case study, do let me know and I’ll do more of these moving forward. If not, our case studies are all on HEX website for you to view without all the process breakdowns.

That’s all, Cheers!