Cardano elevates its branding ahead of smart contract roll-out

Cardano elevates its branding ahead of smart contract roll-out

(Written by @Bakyt_CF, Director of Global PR and Communications at the Cardano Foundation)

ZÜRICH, 4 AUGUST 2020. Project Renovare has concluded with a comprehensive brand reappraisal and website refresh for the Cardano Foundation. An ambitious joint project with brand strategy and design agency McCann Dublin, Project Renovare ensured that both Cardano and the Foundation were fit-for-purpose in anticipation of the launch of staking, which arrived on 29 July 2020, and smart contracts—broadening the appeal of the Cardano blockchain for enterprise, institutions, and government.

Project Renovare, which means ‘to renew’ in Latin, has positioned Cardano as a platform for societal and economic change, designed to have a long-lasting impact on both the world of enterprise blockchain and the individual.

The Cardano Foundation’s website has now been redesigned to coincide with www.Cardano.org’s refresh and more importantly, to herald the launch of staking, smart contracts, the maturity of the community, and to welcome core enterprise users to the Cardano blockchain.

The Foundation’s organizational identity refresh has helped solidify its new focus as a full-service organization, focused on driving an adoption strategy for Cardano, through to integration and execution—to enable fast-track value creation for inclusive and equitable growth.

Bakyt Azimkanov, Global PR and Communications Director at the Cardano Foundation, says:

“Working with McCann Dublin was a mutually beneficial process, and the Cardano Foundation has now successfully completed a full brand reappraisal to reflect the upcoming arrival of smart contracts on the Cardano blockchain. Branding is vital in driving value and attracting corporate adopters to the Cardano ecosystem. We expect our reappraised brand positioning to appeal to the influx of enterprise users seeking innovative blockchain solutions, such as the pharmaceutical industry, financial services, logistics, and retailers.”

Project Renovare also delivered the official Cardano brand film, débuted during the Cardano Virtual Summit 2020, which provides an in-depth view of Cardano’s journey as a blockchain and communicates why a brand reappraisal was timely and necessary as the protocol evolves.

David Nurse, Group Digital Strategist at McCann Dublin, says:

“McCann Dublin shares many of the same visions for the future of the blockchain industry as the Cardano Foundation, and we were a natural fit as strategic partners during its brand reappraisal. As an agency centered on brand building, we were delighted to find that many strong fundamentals had already been laid by the Cardano community and the Foundation, and we built on these to deliver refreshed branding.”

The Cardano Foundation now welcomes developers, enterprise users and the wider blockchain community to explore Cardano’s growing ecosystem.

About the Cardano Foundation: The Cardano Foundation is an independent Swiss standards body that oversees and supervises the advancement of Cardano and its ecosystem. The Foundation’s core focus is in developing a Cardano adoption strategy through to integration and execution, to enable fast-track value creation for inclusive and equitable growth. As the legal custodian of the protocol and the owner of the Cardano brand, the Foundation works to drive adoption and partnerships, grow the wider blockchain community, shape legislation, and commercial standards, and ensure stakeholder accountability. Find out more: www.CardanoFoundation.org

About McCann Dublin: McCann Dublin is a creative agency specializing in brand, design and digital content. They see the world differently. Where others see challenges, McCann sees opportunities to create change for good. Driven by that ethos and steered by McCann WorldGroup’s approach to Truth Well Told, McCann Dublin has reimagined the brand stories of Microsoft, LinkedIn, Norwegian Airlines, AB InBev and Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders to name just a few. To learn more visit www.McCannDublin.com.

(Click here for the original source of the press release)

6 Likes

Well done on the branding Team :ok_hand:t5:

Sorry but the design is utterly forgettable and generic. No personality or life.

Anyone involved in web design knows the power of the human face. It connects people to what is inherently a sterile medium. Blockchain tech is cold and technical. The point of the website is to humanize the technology. To bring life to it. This is web design 101.

Get feedback from any design community and you’ll hear the same thing.

Very disappointed.

5 Likes

Couldn’t agree more…After 35 yrs in brand design …I think this is such a lost opportunity with a dreadful dull and anodyne design…Doesn’t communicate the essence of the cardano vision and the decentralised concept…The designers have clearly not understood the challenge and failed terribly…Lord knows I’m pretty sure Cardano was charged a fortune for this cxxx…what a shame

1 Like

As a graphic designer myself, I have to concur.

The CF website at least has a somewhat serious feel to it without becoming too cold, but it’s as unexciting as it is monochromatic.

The cardano.org redesign is more accessible, and I can tell it was intended to be as friendly and welcoming as possible to what I guess we can call non-technical visitors, or at least people new to the scary world of crypto. Unfortunately this was poured into a rather generic, bland color palette & styling. Was this a freebie? Because, unfortunately, it feels like one :neutral_face:

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Just came across this video from a popular crypto YouTuber and he echos the sentiment that the site is terribly designed and states that most of his viewers hate it as well.

It’s pretty clear that the Cardano foundation needs to hire someone with a graphic design and user interface design background to oversee these things. If they already have someone, time to move on to someone else.

Branding and UI are extremely important in this space and this isn’t good.