[Discussion Series] Visually Adapting Gitcoin’s Brand: Photography
Co-authors: Lani Trock, Laura Helen
This is the sixth topic in a series on Gitcoin’s evolving brand. Our visual brand identity is evolving as part of a larger reflection of our transition from an Impact DAO to a Protocol DAO, which we’re announcing at ETHDenver.
Decentralized design is a living, breathing public good.
Sharing our visual brand design progress publicly is a milestone in translating the work from figma files to the broader community. Our purpose is to illuminate the meaning of our team’s work, inspire your own, and spark questions. This post is opening a channel for our design team to connect with you, our community and peers.
Process
As a values-led design team, we’ve been working to mindfully create concepts and ideas that are meaningful. This work is rooted in our Brand Values, and evolved in parallel with the brand strategy. For a refresh on the preceding work, watch our December Community Call and follow along with our presentation.
Outcome
Our design team has been producing visual assets and ideas to support the brand strategy that many of you contributed to and led by Alexa Lombardo. The design work being shared today is one part of a brand evolution process. The work is designed to shine a light on the larger function of Gitcoin, as well as reflecting on you as a contributor or community member.
Photography
We’re introducing photography to the brand for the first time!
Gitcoin’s ecosystem is made up of vibrant people who are working to coordinate a world with sustainable artistry, thriving indigenous communities, evolving Ethereum infrastructure, and many varied efforts toward equitable futures.
Photography gives us a lens through which to explore the world around us. With photography, we can better represent not only our community and contributors, but our grantees and program managers as well.
Nature
Grand landscapes, tiny flowers, the ocean, and tiny us, made miniature by scale. The feeling of an immersion in the vibrant colors of nature draw us into remembrance of our connection to her. We are humbled by the vastness and we utilize these images to convey an embodied feeling of connection, bridging the tech we’re building with the physical world we intend to serve.
Nature’s beauty inspires awe and imbues the viewer with a personal sense of responsibility to take care of our shared home. We’re using nature photography as a design element already, a way of testing the guardrails of our brand over the last couple months while building it.
An excerpt from our visual design language demonstrating how photography can be blended with components to make something new.
People
We recognize that people are not separate from nature, rather we are a part of her ecosystem. Our photography suite is a reflection of the world of crypto and its many citizens. Gitcoin builders and audiences are joining us from all walks of life, so it’s important to maintain integrity and balance through the photos we choose.
Coordination
Coordination is a category of photography that can be best described as “humans doing things.”
One of the clear modern examples of this is the evolution of technology, computers, the web, open source software. This can also be seen with green technologies, solar panels, history of innovation and scientific images. Coordination shines through biomimetic architecture as well.
Public Goods, Past to Present
We can see a bridge from past to present of people helping people. People interacting with and benefiting from tax-funded public services such as public pools, parks, and libraries are real world examples of how society benefits from public goods.
Community-driven public goods
The Black Panther Party free food & community healthcare programs set a historical precedent that echoes today in community gardens, tiny libraries, community fridges, and any grassroots effort to meet communal needs today.
Historical or present-day public goods photos are well suited for contextual blog posts, presentations, or any place where Gitcoin’s purpose and values are being demonstrated through our work. All of the photos we’re collecting are either public domain images or licensed by Creative Commons. Mixing images from the past and present alludes to the timelessness and timeliness of the Gitcoin mission.
We intend to work directly with photographers in the future.
Additional inspiration
Thank you
Please ask clarifying questions or leave feedback in the comments.
Pro tip: When giving feedback, aim to be as objective as possible. Explore where your thinking originates. Does your point of view connect to the brand strategy? Is your perspective connected to our values? How so?
Our next post will be about ILLUSTRATIONS 