Akord

Akord was founded on the idea that we should all have total control of our own data. Our files, photos, and information should forever belong to us – not be at the mercy of the cloud or device they’re stored on. Built on top of Arweave’s ‘permaweb’ blockchain, Akord is a protocol for storage and publishing of your most important files. At the heart of the brand is an idea that just providing tools for storage is not enough. Akord’s potential isn't realised – and its narrative is incomplete – until the community uses those tools to create their own vision of the future. We looked to reinforce that idea of needing the community to build on top of Akord’s work throughout the visual identity.

There is a prominent use of Madlibs which provokes the audience to automatically imagine how the gaps might be filled, and so complete the story with their own ideas. We lead the homepage of the new Akord site with a Madlibs typographic animation which helps the user to identify with the values through a game of creative wordplay. It also comes through in the use of splitscreen imagery; building on the exquisite corpse visual game, through a collage of conceptual imagery we bring to life the idea of possible futures, collaborations and unexpected outcomes. This also enabled us to show the product (the app and API) in a distinctive and ownable way that is web friendly. We used scroll-based parallax that showcases a possible outcome and then reveals the protocol code or the interface of the app respectively. The core ideas carry through into the logo where we have an Akord wordmark that begins with an incomplete ‘A’. It starkly reinforces the belief that the job is unfinished, Akord’s potential will not be realised, without its community’s involvement and creativity.

The overall design system is intended to speak to the creative nature of web3 builders, while at the same time eschewing some of the more common web3 trends. The upbeat and vibrant colour palette is warm and inviting. Typographically we combined Jet Brains Mono – an open source typeface created for developers – with Reckless Neue, a high-contrast serif font which adds to the sophistication of the product. And the choice of imagery deliberately balances the technological with the natural, the abstract with the figurative. All of these help take the brand away from the prevailing dark, overtly tech aesthetic of the category, and help create a distinct, modern identity for Akord.