Case Study : Human Guild’s Brand Refresh
Brand Refresh for a platform that rewards creators humanly.
By Isaac Sixtus Chizaram
For the past few months, our team of brand designers, visual/motion designers, and illustrators have worked tirelessly to provide Human Guild with the ultimate brand refresh that will potentially elevate its identity amongst other guilds. With our branding expertise and a keen eye for detail, our process involved creating visually appealing minimal yet memorable personalities for every part of the brand without getting in the way. From logo, typography, color palette, and more, it is essential to communicate the values of Human Guild in a way that retains the appeal that attracted users from the beginning.
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Project
Refreshing brand identity for Near Protocol’s Guild of The Year - Human Guild
Tools
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe Aftereffects
- Figma
Scope
- Logo
- Brand Presentation
- illustration
- Style Guide
- Logo Animation
- Mascot
- Iconography
8.Youtube Intro/Outro for Next Creators Podcast
‘’we wanted to highlight the core values that speak for the HG Brand.’’
Human Guild - Brand Values
The Human Guild is an open group of founders and creators who believe everyone should be able to earn what they need in order to do what they love.
Human Guild - Purpose
Our mission is to increase the number of people earning cryptocurrencies every day. This helps, but our community is always with you so you are not alone.
Human Guild - Brand Vision
The Internet is changing and we want more people to experience the future together without barriers and gatekeeping. Build what you think is useful for humanity.
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The Idea
There are so many guilds grappling for attention and most of them forget about the most important thing- being unique. With Human Guild, we wanted to highlight the core values that speak for themselves at a glance and create an emotional connection with its users.
The Approach
The first step was to understand the needs of the brand.
‘What is the message?
‘What is the tone?
‘What are the community driven core values?
The Human Guild’s purpose is to obliterate the barriers and gatekeeping that prevent people from creating what they love. We decided to ask rhetorical questions to make sure create a perfect visual experience for the brand.
The questions include;
- Your mission (what’s your “why?”)
- Your values (what beliefs drive humanguild?)
- Your brand personality (if humanguild was a person, what kind of personality would they have?)
- Your unique positioning (how do you differentiate humanguild from the competition?)
- Your brand voice (if humanguild was a person, how would it communicate?)
The next step was to develop a a strong & authentic brand for human guild and delivering it consistently is the foundation upon which every successful idea is built.
The third step was to identify the visual language that will express this concept. How can we share our message clearly with the correct tone, visuals and memes without distorting the values?
At final step we will be exploring humanguild’s weakness to create a unique strength for the brand.
With a proper brand style design/guide, deliverables will include;
- Logo Usage
- Colors
- Typography
- Textures & patterns
- Photography
- Website Iconography
- Brand Application
- Print Materials
These elements are what define your brand, and before you start building your brand identity, it’s important you have a clear understanding of each.
The Research
This project included a large design exploration to refresh Human Guild’s identity. We started by finding visuals, memes & shapes that positions the brand as a top tier Guild in the NEAR Ecosystem. The core values that best describe the human guild — community, security, and free expression.
This observation made us realize that emotions are the focal point of Clubhouse and should be highlighted in the branding. Emotions vary depending on situations we are involved in and can convey different messages at all times as a way of communication mostly expressed through speech, which is the selling point of the app.
“The Human Guild Founders (Vlad & Sasha) insisted we maintain the identity(logo) but also create a refreshment around it and we did it!!”
Another consideration was retaining the existing brand colors so as not to change but elevate and maintain the brand’s core value.
We also tried different brand elements that will complement the logo’s welcoming feel like social posters, HG memes, etc.
The Solution
The Refreshed Brand Logo
Our choice of logo is a combination of the brand’s values and functions into one unique symbol — a safe place (home), a chance to be heard (microphone) and, a platform for positive experiences(smile). The curved corners convey a friendly, welcoming first impression suited for a brand that is considered a community. We carried out a survey to test how young creatives could relate to the logo and were thrilled to find out most of them found the logo memorable and brand fit.
The Brand Colors #DC5726 + #E8AC4C
We retained existing brand colors for the entire branding to enhance, not change its core identification.
However, we experimented with placing the logos and icons on a neutral background to achieve an elevated look
As a powerful form of communication, the brand color is irreplaceable. Likewise, the colors used for a product, web site, business card, or logo cause powerful reactions.
The Brand Gradient X Pattern(s)
In architecture and art, patterns can be used to create visual effects on the observer. Patterns are important because they offer visual clues to an underlying order.
The Brand Typography
Some typefaces, particularly in the display category, add personality to a brand. The intentional use of this typography can indicate that the brand is playful, warm, mysterious, edgy, youthful, refined, and so on. Therefore, it’s important you understand the traits of a brand or design project in order to use typography that conveys the right personality.
The “Work Sans” will be only only font to be used across all Brand touchpoint -Socials, Web, graphics & Videography for Human Guild.
Custom Illustration for Web Pages
Sure, many ideas, stories, can be told via just copy/text. However, they should be paired with some sort of visual representation. The more abstract or complex an idea becomes, the more important it becomes to incorporate an illustration into the design.
Even something as little as illustrating shapes can convey that the brand message
Or, something even more abstract, such as the planets in the solar system, is much easier to understand when paired with an illustration to show what each planet looks like, size differences, and the order they are in.
The Style Guide
We created a full set of guidelines for logo and identity use, including color palettes, fonts, and layout placement. Practice shows that style guides play a strategic role in brand development: all future contributors will get clear instructions about correct and wrong ways to use the graphics created for this project.
The brand guide includes several sections and information about the logo, its applications and specifications, color, and monochrome versions which can be used for a wide range of purposes. Also, it shows examples of incorrect usage to avoid poor visual performance.
Brand Iconography
Shapes makes visual reproducing effort much more simple and straightforward and provides a clear-cut process.
Illustration creates a sense of story in spaces that would be blank. The most important purpose of illustration is to fill spaces with inspirational visuals and tell a story of the human condition.
Thanks For Reading!
Link to full project
Project Design Lead
Isaac Zara
Founders, Human Guild
@vlad @sashahudzilin