Mysten Labs
Role
Creative and design direction
Brand Strategy
Brand and web design
Brand Strategy
Brand and web design
Overview
Mysten Labs is a web3 infrastructure company, dedicated to establishing true digital ownership for billions of people. Founded in September 2021 by four former Facebook engineers—Evan Cheng, Sam Blackshear, Adeniyi Abiodun, and George Danezis—who worked together at Facebook's Novi financial products unit. Mysten Labs is the original contributor to the Sui blockchain.
Strategy and Positioning
Research and Discovery Phase
Beginning with stakeholder interviews across the product, engineering, and business teams, we established a positioning foundation to guide RFP development. Selecting Gretel as our creative partner, joint research uncovered key beliefs and differentiators that informed the reworking of Mysten Labs’ mission statement and principles, laying the groundwork for a cohesive brand strategy.
Brand Strategy
Research, collaboration, and curiosity emerged as the foundation of Mysten Labs’ brand positioning. Beyond any single product, the promise to partners, academic and technology peers, and the crypto community is that Mysten’s team and ethos are uniquely suited to inspire and collaborate with a global community of builders to develop a better internet.
Logo
Inspired by Mysten Labs’ original logo, Art Deco shapes converge to form an ‘M’ letterform, symbolizing progress, forward movement, and advancement.
Typography
The primary typeface, Mysten Walter Alte by Dinamo, was selected for its visual appeal and bold precision, perfectly suited to an engineering firm.
Evocative of the ‘forging path’ brand concept, a key aspect of the visual identity is the use of typographic illustrations created with an open version of Walter.
The secondary typeface, Fragment Mono, is pragmatic, and highly legible—ideal for presenting detailed information.
Evocative of the ‘forging path’ brand concept, a key aspect of the visual identity is the use of typographic illustrations created with an open version of Walter.
The secondary typeface, Fragment Mono, is pragmatic, and highly legible—ideal for presenting detailed information.
Color System
Primary and secondary colors. Bold Mysten red is quickly becoming associated with the brand. The system is loosely based on television test signal palette from the analog era.
Illustrations
The illustrations visualize the 'forging path' strategy, the lines flow between perpendicular angles, quarter and half circle curve.
Motion Behaviors
The core behavior is forging paths. Dynamic and concise line movement emphasizes the action and reaction forces required to complete the form. The sharp, tight easing in the behavior is applied to three approaches: completing, cascading, and typing, providing a set of coherent applications for a variety of use cases and contexts.
Website
Custom typeface, brand colors and gaming partner imagery in use. The illustrations visualize the 'forging path' strategy, the lines work navigates between perpendicular angles, quarter and half circle curve.
Credits
Project Team
Creative director, and project lead
Patrick O'Rourke
Head of Design
Abhishek Kumar
Head of Marketing
Jen Kye
Agency Partners
Gretel