EmergentX, a company dedicated to turning disruptive developing technologies such as blockchain into practical solutions that enhance lives, has launched a new brand identity created by adam&eveDDB.
After adam&eveDDB creative director Chris Chapman was approached directly by EmergentX brand & product developer Kevin King in May 2023, the agency set out to find a creative solution that would unite EmergentX’s day-to-day business – working with cutting edge, often unfamiliar new tech – with its mission: to help make the world simpler and easier.
A brand identity for the business was needed that brought to life the transformation EmergentX delivers. The result is a variable, dynamic identity that transforms from weird abstract forms into a highly legible, functional text.
Working with two font foundries, adam&eveDDB created a variable font called EX Abstract that transforms from abstract to legible and allows any digital touchpoint containing the font to show the transformation. The variable font – believed to be a world first – also allows for a lot of interaction. And the whole brand is infused with the experience of transformation from confusion to certainty.
The agency also designed the brand’s website, for which the variable font enables interactive moments of transformation as transitions while ensuring that information is fully legible.
See the new font in action on the new EmergentX website here.
Chris Chapman, creative director at adam&eveDDB, said, “We established that the tension in the brief was between the weirdness of emerging technologies and how familiar and functional they can soon feel in our lives. It soon became clear the solution needed to be both.”
Kevin King, brand & product developer at EmergentX, said, “The identity perfectly mirrors the essence of our work, transforming initially perplexing blockchain technology into a simple, everyday tool that empowers people.”
Dalton Bruyns and Simon Bent at MTMF (Modern Type & Metis Foundry Typographic Alliance), said, "Together we generated a design system in which we begin the exercise of abstracting the letterforms and allow the software to continue those changes until they could no longer be recognised as letters."
“It’s by far the most novel approach to a typeface we have ever worked on both individually and together. It was also great to be able to be able to devise a unique approach to type design for this project.”
Web developer Zachary Bishop, who did the new website’s development and build, said, “Was great fun working with such an unusual variable font because it allowed for many more possibilities of interactivity and expression.”