There's nothing quite like a bit of pressure to get the blood pumping. Well this week we had a super tight deadline as one of our clients decided to start up a new business, brand it and launch a site within 4 weeks.
This new venture is CoinDesk, an information portal covering news, information and developments about the digital currency, Bitcoin. For those who don't know what Bitcoin is take a look at the FAQ.
We were tasked with creating a brand identity for CoinDesk. The first step in this process was to learn as much as we could about Bitcoin and digital currency as a whole. This is one of the things we love most about our work as designers!
Developing a relevant icon for CoinDesk was going to be key, as the identity was going to be used heavily on social media sites and feeds. We produced a range of ideas and directions and eventually created a simple 'dot' based icon. By using different sized dots, we wanted to create the feeling of fluctuation in a volatile market. The large dots also create the letter 'C'.
A simple colour scheme of yellow and black links to coins, and creates a strong, eye catching look when surrounded by visual noise, such as a twitter feed. For the type we used Helvetica Neue Bold, which some minor customisation to the letterforms, including replacing the square dot on the 'i' with a round one, to link it with the icon.
As the CoinDesk team had a very short timeframe to launch, they used an off-the-shelf Wordpress theme. Using the theme as a basis, we re-skinned every element to help create continuity with the brand identity. We also added a bunch of new functionality and features.
Shakil Khan, the founder of CoinDesk tweeted —
a HUGE thanks to the team @toward for their round-the-clock design work over the last 48 hours in creating the Site & Corp ID for @coindesk
