Logo and Branding

Research: As DAOHQ was competing in the emerging metaverse industry, I researched the branding and logos of several other companies in that sector such as: Coinbase, Polygon, Chainlink, Binance, etc.

Ideation: Wanted to display the networking and limitless interconnected nature of metaverse communities and DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations), and illustrate the purpose that DAOHQ stands for: connecting these communities and finding the right one for each individual, according to their interests and capabilities.

Using modern color schemes (as the metaverse was a newly emerging industry that was constantly evolving), played with the logo concept (shown in slide 3) of the "HQ" in DAO featuring intersecting nodes in the "H" and the "Q" serving as a magnifying glass focusing on one largened node, to symbolize the DAO-finding process.

Drafts: As the initial concept from the "ideation" stage featured the problem of the details being lost in smaller dimensions, I decided to focus my drafts on abstract mark and pictorial mark logos. These subsequent drafts from the initial concept still focused on the nodal aspect of metaverse communities.

Delivered Products: My submitted designs featured four of my later draft pictorial mark logos in a wordmark and standalone icon in both light and dark states. Although my designs did not make the cut, they served as color scheme and branding character inspiration for the rest of the project.

Pain Points

Pain Point #1: Original website design featured harsh purple, orange, and black tones. Buttons were sharply cornered, and button hierarchy (with good use of CTA buttons) were not strong.

Solution: Color palette was changed to lighter tones of pink and orange (via my color palette brainstorming from logo and branding concepts, above) and corner radius of buttons was increased to “pill button” dimensions. Icons to buttons such as “Discord” were added to allow for quicker reading and processing by user.

Pain Point #2: Current space for DAO logos was restricting! Rectangular frames cut off features of logos, however square-shaped frames would not be aligned with the DAO card text. Cards were too cluttered.

Solution: Circular profile pictures fit every logo’s dimensions without cropping off features, and could be fit easily into card dimensions. Reducing card to a simple DAO’s statement reduced clutter, as the previous “Category” and “Chain” labels were redundant, as the filter tools displayed the same information.

Pain Points Cont.

Pain Point #3: User experience of “finding DAOs” was lacking. There was no component to manually type in a search for a specific DAO, nor was there a starting place for trending DAOs should the user have absolutely no prior knowledge of DAOs.

Solution: Search bar right in user’s eye focus (the DAO cards) to give user the fast option of manually typing in a search for a specific DAO, and the addition of the “Trending DAOs” component featuring top DAO’s in different categories (service, BTC, gaming, etc.).

Website Illustration

Problem: In early stages of version 2 of the DAOHQ website, there was lacking in friendly user interface, aligned with DAOHQ’s branding character, to make the experience as smooth for the user as possible.

Solution: I created several website illustrations to use for: page not found, error pages, when a user’s searches yield no valid results, loading pages, etc.

Process: Researched typical illustrations for similar purposes via Behance and design mood boards throughout the internet. Next, I sketched rough drafts of concepts in a traditional sketchbook, then reinforced the illustration digitally on Figma.

My illustrations in use below: