Buliding brands for WEB3 in 2024 - Damian Denis

so um hello everyone uh my name is damond Denise so I'm co-founder of properly studio and we are doing um a lot of cool designs for web free projects um and today I would like to tell you more about how to build brands for web free especially in 2024 because it's a bit different uh than previously so let's start um from the beginning I would like to come on come on come on uh at the beginning I would like to tell you what the branding isn't uh because it's uh it's not a lot of things that people are thinking it is so let me H it's not a logo uh that might be a bit shocking but it's true uh often it's a kind of understatement substitute for Branding but logo is a very useful tool uh for business uh it's often the only element that we see but uh it's not a branding it's just a symbol for the brand so it's not a product as well uh people often says that they are buying Brands but in real they are buying products of its brand and it's not a promise that company is making to customers there is some truth in that uh it does end up acting as a promise uh but not what it is either come in so sorry I just need to turn this off okay um again it's not a promise uh that company is making to customers um it does end up acting as a promise [Applause] but damn it come in come in is there is someone else okay okay okay okay um so let's jump into that what branding is basically and it's a result it's a customer gut feeling about product service or company and basically here I could finish that part but because in fact this is sentence perfectly sums up very essence of branding however I will try to give you a little more details and out line and understanding of what branding is so that you won't have any DS uh it ends up in their heads in their hearts so going a little deeper into we can say that it end up in people heads and their hearts so probably you know that but whatever we give people they are taking it and making something from it that's very important part here uh it's thousand Mill ions brands in one what does it mean that means that in the sense we are not creating one branding but thousand of or even millions of brandings in people heads because each of these human beings has their own brand vision of what we are creating feel free join uh it's also business reputation uh what that means uh basically your business reputation so everyone will probably think a little different about what reputation is but until you have it collected placed uh where you want it additionally it's beneficial to the company then it's okay so um this is something what we are doing with you I mean we as a studio who is creating this such brandings so we are telling the story and as I mentioned before it's about what's in people heads so brand equals result and if we gather all of that elements we can say that the brand is a result all of that things which I mentioned before so uh how to measure the effectiveness of branding uh there is many of elements that can measure such a thing and first one is the company income uh the easiest one I think to to measure although this is hard to um measure um but it's um had an impact on increases because there are usually many other things going around as well such as strategy product structures Etc but it's certainly an element that has uh direct impact on the company growth or loses the next one is website traffic uh that's the the other thing that we can measure is website traffic which may be very helpful factor to say that we did it successfully uh there is a lot of tools that helps to measure this kind of thing but um it's a good point that reflects somehow what we are creating is it good because we can measure how long people stays on our website and I will continue on that top later on uh we can uh measure as well social media followers and their Enga engagement and I think even engagement especially in web free is more important here uh so how we build or rebuild a brand also has a direct impact on how we how the community around uh the brand is built so people people just like nice things and if the brand hits their needs then we have a win win situation so direct sales after campaigns it's a very powerful tool for businesses so it can be measured by tracking response rate monitoring response rate and many more of metrics which can help us to say we did a good job or not and how Community engagement looks in web free so again what makes strong branding in web free delving even deeper into this topic what makes brand strong understanding the community is the first thing and I would say most important here because quite often in web free we are uh considering this as a main element to whom we are creating something um the next one it's all about emotions so uh emotional messaging in branding and marketing will help help make your business more relatable uh to build credibility and help you stand out from the competition so this factor is also important so here is an example of couple of uh projects uh nft projects which were based on on these factors as you can see they created quite huge community and they are doing quite well still uh using endless possibilities of web free uh as we consider the endless possibilities of metaverse for example it's clear that the immersive digital word is opening new opportunities for brand development and engagement so for example from V walls like nland I don't know that you know this but they they did they did a really good job here uh where users can create avatars interact with each other and participate in sporting challenges to the virtual presentation of Samsung flagship phone for example and even virtual MacDonald wrl so it opens a lot um comparing to that what traditional uh branding is not offering um so make it move that's the that's that's we know that web free gives us Endless Possibilities to expand the brand so why not to move it and it connects extremely with emotions and it allows to Brands to um somehow stops people on their brand because right now we have a lot of a lot of different projects which are trying to grab their attention so movement is one of the thing and it's very it's becoming very popular that uh these days brandings are using such a tool or technique to to utilize that branding and to even to to make it even more alive so I would like to tell you how we do it and yeah we do it properly um so it definitely requires flexibility and product and services uh in that decentralized technology sector frequently addresses highly specialized no worries no worries coming uh frequently addresses highly specialized uh or technical use cases making them difficult to uh describe or represent visually for General audience so effective effectively communicating the value of and functionality of such Innovations present a challenge as a complicated concept must be framed accessibly and trustworthy uh uh to avoid causing confusions and apprehensions uh in stakeholders head so not already familiar with the underlying Technologies uh strategic me strategy sorry strategic messaging is key to socializing novel offering and building understanding while reassuring users that they needs remind the priority it's quite complex but yeah well so we created um through our experience we developed uh an operational model that functions effectively and allows us to customize that to our um client needs which we called This Way KTP uh what does it mean it means that no equals brand Sprint we start from that part uh which you can see that the sneak peek how it looks but no problem but basically that's the very very very early stage of the process with with our clients where we are asking a lot of strange questions uh how they want to create their brands what are the values who is the competition what do they need basically what are characteristics of the brand we are trying somehow to force them to think about the brand like sometimes as a person how this person should look how this person should talk how this person person should uh behave uh because it all in next steps it reflects these elements so next step is think equals brainstorm and sorry the previous one uh after that uh process of um design uh brand Sprint uh we are thinking about how we should prepare this brand we are trying to process this in in our team uh to uh create something very valuable for the client align tailored to his needs so that's the process of brainstorming and after that we are uh in the process of preparing which starts from moodboard and that from moodboards and this is the first process where we are showing some kind of visuals to the clients where we are trying to find uh our path which is the the goal for the direction of The Branding so it's good to start with some examples and that's how we uh how we do moodboards so we are showing couple of things sometimes they are more extended sometimes not but it depends on the projects that as I mentioned before we are trying to tailor that to the needs of the client so um here is an an example how the mood board can look uh uh and we are asking at this moment how they feel such elements what they would like to follow hello Dennis uh and the next step is make which is I think the most time consuming most exhausting but most satisfying process for us so we start here with creative Direction and this is an example for one of our clients that we are coming up with free Concepts where we are trying to show client the movement the logo the typography the colors the overall scheme which is based on the uh outcome from the previous steps the next step is execute equals implementation this is the final stage which is uh also very important and in addition to the preparation of brand it includes all the elements established at the beginning of the branding process uh and often it's linked with the preparation of a website without which nowadays companies does not exist uh so uh sometimes it's very connected to the product because it depends what we are creating for the for the clients as I mentioned before branding is not only logo color scheme or uh slogan it's a lot of different things so we are making also products we are connecting that with brand we are using the color scheme in product design so we are trying to execute that uh in a proper way so here is an example how we um deliver such things to the client so this is the final outcome uh and example how it could look uh and for example in this case we had a chance to to prepare the website for them uh next topic is what what's the difference between branding and rebranding so when you're thinking about that they might be similar but they are different and they are different on the level not on the visual level but on the aspect of process some things what's deeper uh than visuals so that's because they have different needs and their situation is quite similar they want to build something new however they have uh completely different reasons to do that some uh have the need to appear and stand out from the mass of competition by fighting for user attention and building a community and the others uh on the other hand uh very often already have it built but want to make small changes often this is due to business decisions declining user engagement business remodeling or just sometimes decision to change something because they don't have enough assets because they don't have uh they they feel that uh the community don't like they visual they branding the communication the messaging so uh so that's that's the difference and uh what's branding uh while it's true that small brands have more flexibility as I mentioned today on the panel who who heard that maybe remember um the so they have definitely much more flexibility than their big bigger cousins I mean the companies which are trying to uh Rebrand uh but with the freedom uh comes great responsibility so uh new brands as the fresh faced upstairs of the business World these uh fledging firms can craft their own brand identity from scratch but with opportunity comes this obstacles and they have to Elbow their way through the crowded competitors Market which we know that in web free is very very hard uh so here it's just uh to show you some couple of uh cool visuals uh it's a example of branding which we were doing for one of our clients uh astrop and we did some visuals uh for them as I mentioned before kind of motion and structure how it could look uh here is another example maybe some of them some of you uh know this project uh so just an example how the brand uh how the new branding can look and here is additional think which I think is important important to uh mention that uh such new companies which are which are trying to attend the market and create something new have the the the opportunities to create something from scratch they have more Brave they have a lot of more options but this comes with some responsibility so in this case together with Angel block we were creating Al also the nft collection which was part of their communication and uh they wanted to utilize that to the uh to the community with uh with good uh examples of of visuals to just to connect and attach somehow the community to that so they was that that was their approach for example and what's rebranding uh from visual aspect we can say that that's not differs a lot but as I mentioned the difference is in the process so um such companies which are already established in this case quanum maybe also you know them it's a company which is uh uh making audits to other huge companies uh like ethereum and and others um so going back to to the topic they they wanted to change something but uh they need to think about how their customers are uh thinking about them uh so the decisions are different so that means that the process needs to be um structured differently so we need to tailor that also in a different way um so in this example they wanted to stay with their logo uh but to change the rest which is quite interesting because they felt that the logo is very recognizable and we just wanted to make some tweaks in that and align this with the the the other part of The Branding so we created something like that uh basically the case was to structure that because they had logo nothing around that only one color and that was all everything around was messed up so we created the entire branding for them so that was kind of rebranding but also organizing all the elements in one to have that premium and serious feeling for the company such a qu stamp um next example um something from this year maybe you're kind of familiar with POA do uh community so maybe you know Hydra DX X uh now hydration so we had a chance to work on that and this is a good example that they wanted to change uh their branding uh which it was to Rebrand but also they wanted to change the naming because the connotation of Hydra DX was really bad at some point uh the connotation was with hacking group so they had to change the name and they realized that why not to go with hydration so we created everything around that and also we prepared the whole story behind us uh with visuals and everything around being hydrated not liquidated um so yeah as you can see uh they they prefer to go with this very chill look um feeling safe that after work we can go to the pool uh have fun but still be secured so uh we did also the brand and as you can see it looks totally different than uh they were looking before the only thing what they wanted to keep was color because they were using this pink one so uh we changed everything together with visuals it's uh very consistent right now uh and looking much different and that was very important part because um not only visuals uh were important to them also the community response was very important so they had to make some decisions I would say kind of Brave decisions uh because they didn't know what happened and uh what will happen and uh that was our role to uh to create something what will um find the expectations of the community so the response after showing that was extremely good and the community was very um uh very happy that it changed uh this way uh which is not happening always because as probably some of you may know that Facebook was changing to meta trying to change this kind of things people are not liking changes which is uh not so good good we just get to used to them after some time but at the beginning is very problematic when we are changing something what we like and we get to use used to that so we created for them a lot of cool pictures we we are having a lot of fun with that uh with 3D uh as you can see even vending machine for the cons because they are moving uh their communication to hydration uh not liquidation and uh they have their own pools on the market so we are we realize why not to make this pools as a cons which is a pretty cool because this allows them to uh push The Branding even further so what are the differences that's basically what I mentioned uh and I think this topic is um for now exhaused but what are our TP tips when you are thinking about branding or for rebranding uh the first one uh uh this seems to be trivial but uh we have encountered in practically every project that topic uh since most projects also create their own coin we need to create token icon which from for us as a brand designers sometimes might be quite problematic because you know logo can be just uh typography logo type uh it doesn't need to be with symbol but it creates some problem at some point when we are thinking about okay what's going on here we we need token how how we will show that so most of the logos as you can see on the market have their own uh token icon uh the next one don't think too far uh especially in web free uh so as we know the emerging blockchain and cryptocurrency Industry uh one of the primary differences is branding sorry approaches um compared to more traditional Industries involves significant limitations in longterm uh strategic uh forecasting and planning so we are not able to predict what will happen probably after 5 years even after of even five years sometimes is really hard to predict what will happen because we know what happened for last two years in crypto so uh I believe that uh this kind of companies shouldn't think too far uh and how it affects branding um sometimes in traditional markets um when we are talking about branding we need to think what will happen with the brand after 20 years and we are not La in design in in web free industry predict that timeline so it's better to think in short way uh it won't affect branding but it affect the process of creating uh branding uh for us for example because sometimes people are thinking okay we will be the biggest decks in on on something or let's say PKA do or we will be the biggest something okay that's fine but uh that's something what will happen in 10 years and that's not something what we should focus on right now uh but one point to that previous one is that mainly is the thing for web free uh don't copy uh do not copy your competitors just be different I know that uh these times sorry yeah 2 minutes okay um this times uh we are forced by a lot of visuals especially AI Creations if you go to the Twitter you will see probably I don't know 70% of Twitter is uh um fulfilled with AI generated images so if you know how it works it's a copy of something it's uh probably stolen work I know it's a source it's a tool which helps to work on something but I would recommend to not copy to to just sit for 5 minutes and think how we can differ from others to not use the same color scheme to not use other brands as a example uh to copy them just to take them as a inspiration that's that's the thing and what else less time and less expectations that's very important part because we know that web free industry is uh very uh in rush and uh uh sometimes uh people who wants to create company uh want something really quickly so there is an option we can divide the process into smaller pieces which I think is the best one but definitely if you have less time you need to have less expectations it's not possible to you know provide uh full branding in a week uh with brand book Etc so it's better to divide that into smaller pieces and do one by one incorporate that into the website uh social media Etc and marketing manager if you're thinking about branding I think that's very important person who should be hired uh sooner the better and especially would be great to have this person uh with some design knowledge uh because we often um have that situation that we had to work with marketing manager but when we asked them about something related to the design that person didn't know anything so if you are planning to include marketing manager in the process of Designing something would be great to have person with maybe not design skills but slight little uh design knowledge and think about expositions remember that recipients see your branding even on the simplest stages of the whole process so for example newsletter and notification and thank you very much [Applause] so I have a question what I Noti a lot is that there's companies that also I think you you need microphone to record this oh so yeah so I noticed that one of the things that is a challenge is not even The Branding but kind of like stalling The Branding because you want to have the perfect name or the perfect idea of what your brand should be at what kind of tip would you give to companies that are in that stage because that very often delays The Branding and it's like oh we have two weeks to do The Branding now um what what kind of you know what what tips would you give to that kind of stage you mean the moment when the company does not have the naming and they are thinking about how they should or reestablishing the name um so they're kind of like just that step before the actual branding but you're not able to actually Kickstart anything until then the first thing what I would recommend to contract the amount of people related to that process as much as possible because often the decisions are uh extend because of the amount of people exactly the same situation with branding so if you are uh at some step with the decision which you need to make because we are not as a designers we are not able to make that decision we can help you to make the decision but it's not ours I would recommend to shrink down the amount of people uh responsible for that to maybe to maximum fre because often this people are asking their ouns uncle what do you think about that and it's not working because uh they are making uh a lot of you know different thoughts in their heads but if you have at the very first beginning got feeling okay this name is good I like it let's go with that make that decision but do not ask your uncle aunt mother sister whatever uh because it will extend the process thank you thank you any more questions you can can talk to Damien after the talk of course thank you very much one more appla