Web3 Blockchain NFT Metaverse Branding Specialist for Bygone

Role: Metaverse Brand designer

As a brand designer, I had to shape a brand that was easily recognisable and scalable through different moments of history Creating a visual language which is as aesthetically unique as the brand experience being offered.

Illustration by Maddalena Stanca

Scenario

Web3 has opened the door to a lot of different gaming experiences and through the immersion of VR, the experience will be incredible. In the blockchain industry, where visual references already lean towards futuristic, Bygone is creating a bridge between the past to the present and beyond.

Caricatures of famous people populate this fantastic world, and you can easily find Michael Jackson dancing with dinosaurs or Queen Lizzie raving it up in 2099. just enter the Bygone time capsule machine, pick out an Avatar-NFT and start your journey.

Design process

Time travel is a well-known concept in the film and literature industry and these elements are easily recognisable for those passionate about voyaging through time. Through our design process, we have had to take these memories and steer them in a bold new direction, creating a new standard of visual appeal for the users. Essentially reinventing time travel and re-enforcing it with clear art direction. The destination is a logo that can survive many different scenarios, from the 70's to 3120’s and transform into a 3D object or token for interdimensional travel.

Initially, I experimented with different solutions, playing with typography from different times and other graphic concepts. By the end of my journey I had discovered it was easier to focus my attention on one element and a proposal I was really confident in.

Bygone is not just the collection of worlds created in the metaverse. More importantly, it is the means of transportation that allows users to travel to and from these experiences; This is why I have designed a brand which is strictly related to the time travel machine and forged the brand in that element.

The user can enter the capsule, and by spending their Bygone token, initiate their journey into the meta verse through space and time.

The capsule is a gate to new experiences, a bullet in the head of physical law.

The brand mark can take different forms based on the context. From an easy black and white shape suitable for the tokens marketplace to a more tridimensional and descriptive formation. Its final configuration presents itself as is the actual 3D capsule machine found in the game.

A solid block with a hole where you can look inside and see yourself as any shape in any time.It has been designed following strong principles. Easy to customise, evolve and move through time,the capsule creates a cognitive bridge to time travel the very moment someone sees it.
A simple, familiar, memorable shape.

The logotype was built with distinct geometric shapes and a clean,classic foundation which is easy to read, and up to code for the blockchain industry. The curves, specifically in the "n" , serve as a reminder of the capsule’s shape.

In the perfect centre of the letter mark, the IO elements are present, signalling that these time travel experiences are possible only through technology made by humans and based on binary code.

A geometric original typeface construction, bold, adaptable, and easily readable.
The moving version suggests an ascending movement combined with a blending act.
We ascend, travel, and transverse with different characters across multiple times.

Colors

For the Bygone ecosystem, I fully developed a complex system of colours and palettes for the brand. As a starting point, I chose vivid colours. Vivid colours stand out in the dark of our laboratory and represent the multitude of colours offered by different times (1990,1980,1970).

Who said that the past has to be black and white? We want vivid colours for a vivid and entertaining reality.

Those vivid colours combine to create unique, recognizable gradients which communicate the sheer joy of travelling through time. On a deeper level, the colours themselves change as the metamorphosis begins.

But it is the next step that distinguishes this from other brands.Bygone transcends time, beyond the limits of our reality., In the same way, the visual identity is designed to transcend. Bygone doesn't have colours. No. Bygone has metallic cables with colourful gradients. Not flat colours but colourful texturesBygone bends time and space, breaking fundamental rules of physics. In the same way we are breaking one of the sacred rules of design. Bending and distorting images, stretching them to their limits to increase a feeling of distortion and evolution.

Machines acquire gradients through the use of light, and we want to represent them here.

Typography

As a designer I firmly believe in advancing brand recognition through the use of unique typography. To achieve that goal, I've utilised two fonts:

BDR mono Designed by Lopetz in 2006, DR mono, designed based on a geometric grid and gives titles a perfect SciFi look, without impacting on readability.

Red Hat Red Hat is a fresh take on the geometric sans genre, taking inspiration from a range of American sans serifs including Tempo and Highway Gothic. The Display styles are low contrast and spaced tightly. The Text styles have a slightly smaller height and narrower width for better legibility. They are spaced more generously, and have thinned joints for better performance at small sizes.

Key visuals, communication, and payoff

"Time to travel" expresses perfectly in 3 words what Bygone achieves. With different visuals, we want to show some of the colourful worlds present in the Bygone web3 universe.

Beyond this, we want to visually represent how the user can "ascend & shift" using our blockchain-based technology to transform themselves into a famous historical character.

Texture and patterns work to communicate this feeling of change and metamorphosis as well.