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Welcome to our June edition of Polar Updates! This month, we're excited to spotlight our groundbreaking partnership with Terkko Health Hub in Helsinki, marking a significant step into the vibrant world of health and life sciences tech.
In this edition, we'll explore:
🔍 Project Spotlight: Discover how we brought Ovalix's automation vision to life with our unique 'inside-out' design approach.
🌀 Blast from the Past: Journey back to our early work on Cynerio's visual identity, illuminating healthcare security through innovative design.
🎨 Process of...: Uncover the evolution of OneLayer's visual identity, balancing innovation with corporate appeal.
🤖 AIcebreaker: Learn how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing UX writing for complex industries, enhancing our design process.
Join us as we dive into the intersection of design, technology, and healthcare innovation.
This month's Project Spotlight shines on our collaboration with Ovalix, a pioneering company that's revolutionizing security automation. Ovalix's innovative platform empowers organizations to scale their automation by observing, learning from, and streamlining day-to-day work processes.
Our challenge was to create a visual identity that not only reflected Ovalix's 'simple, clean, bright, and minimalistic' ethos but also showcased their groundbreaking approach to automation. What made this project truly unique was our reversed development process - an 'inside-out' approach that set the stage for a cohesive and distinctive brand identity.
Starting from the Core:
We began by crafting the product's visual language, focusing on:
- Product-specific icons that intuitively represent complex processes
- A UI-optimized color palette designed for clarity and ease of use
- Essential elements like diagrams and graphs that form the backbone of the platform
Expanding Outwards:
With product design as our foundation, we then expanded to marketing materials and website design. This approach ensured that the marketing aesthetics drew direct inspiration from the product's processes and elements, creating a seamless narrative across all touchpoints.
Design Elements that Tell a Story:
- The dotted grid texture, originating from the product's interface, became a recurring motif in marketing materials
- The oval shape, present in both the logo and brand name, served as a central, guiding element throughout the design
Logo Evolution:
While we retained Ovalix's existing logo, we breathed new life into it by leveraging its oval shape as a key design element. This subtle nod to the company's identity helped tie together all aspects of the brand visuals.
The result is a visual identity that truly embodies Ovalix's innovative spirit. From the product interface to marketing materials, every design element tells the story of simplification and automation. This cohesive approach not only enhances brand recognition but also provides users and potential clients with a clear, visual understanding of Ovalix's mission and capabilities.
We are thrilled to announce the start of our official partnership with Terkko Health Hub in Helsinki! This collaboration marks an exciting new chapter in our mission to drive innovation through design.
Together with Terkko Health Hub, we are committed to empowering early-stage startups with the tools and support they need to make a transformative impact in the health and life sciences tech industry. By combining our design expertise with Terkko's deep understanding of the health tech ecosystem, we aim to nurture the next generation of healthcare innovators.
This partnership represents a significant step in our journey to shape the future of healthcare through innovative design. We're excited to work alongside the brilliant minds at Terkko Health Hub and the startups they support.
Stay tuned for more updates as we embark on this exciting journey! We look forward to sharing the inspiring stories and groundbreaking designs that will emerge from this collaboration.
We're excited to be back in Helsinki for the third time, but this year marks our first attendance at Arctic15! As a design firm that collaborates closely with tech startups, we're energized by this new opportunity to connect with innovators in Finland's vibrant ecosystem.
While the event is new to us, the city isn't, and we're looking forward to reconnecting with familiar faces and catching up on their progress since our last visit. It's always inspiring to see how the startups we've met before have grown and evolved.
Arctic15 represents a fresh chapter in our Helsinki journey, reinforcing our commitment to supporting and empowering tech startups through innovative design. We're eager to forge new connections, gather fresh ideas, and explore potential collaborations during our time here.
In today's digital landscape, UX writing (microcopy) plays a crucial role in guiding users through interfaces and ensuring smooth task completion. However, crafting effective microcopy for complex industries like cybersecurity, Blockchain, and development tools can be challenging due to their specialized jargon and technical nature. At this important element of user experience enters the impact of AI tools such as:
1. First Gen AI Tools: Grammar and Style Assistance:
- Grammarly: Offers advanced suggestions tailored to UX writing.
- Wordtune: Helps rewrite sentences for clarity and simplicity.
2. Second Gen AI Tool: ChatGPT's Custom Models:
These models are revolutionizing UX writing by:
- Generating industry-specific microcopy
- Aligning with brand tones
- Ensuring accuracy in technical language
- Balancing regulatory requirements with user engagement
By defining the chat's context with specific terms, product descriptions, and relevant data sets, these models learn product nuances and produce consistent, high-quality microcopy throughout the user journey.
The Impact:
Incorporating AI tools in UX writing empowers designers, writers, and product managers to craft text that is:
- Essential and functional
- Engaging and clear
- Tailored to complex industries
As AI technology advances, the potential for even more sophisticated UX writing solutions continues to grow, setting new standards for clarity and usability in challenging fields.
By leveraging these AI-powered tools, we at Polar Hedgehog enhance our design process, but it's important to note that AI doesn't replace human creativity and expertise. Instead, it serves as a powerful collaborator, helping our designers achieve better results more efficiently. This collaboration between human insight and AI capabilities allows us to ensure that our designs not only look great but also communicate effectively, even in the most complex industries. The designer's role remains central, using AI as a tool to augment their skills, streamline workflows, and push the boundaries of what's possible in UX writing and design.
OneLayer's visual identity project presented an exciting challenge: evolving an established brand to better reflect the company's core values while appealing to a conservative target audience. This retrospective offers insights into our design process and the strategies we employed:
1. Foundation:
- Preserved the existing logo and primary color palette (orange and black)
- Expanded the design system to enhance and complement these elements
2. Color Evolution:
- Introduced deep, rich colors to add sophistication
- Balanced conservative appeal with innovative spirit
3. Texture Integration:
- Developed sophisticated textures to add depth and interest
4. Visual Language:
- Created custom illustrations
- Integrated real-world imagery with unique effects
- Designed minimalist icons representing network components
- Crafted detailed, stylized illustrations of industrial and healthcare environments
5. Unification:
- Maintained a cohesive narrative through consistent color scheme and design philosophy
The result is a mature yet forward-thinking aesthetic that positions OneLayer as a trusted and dynamic player in the private LTE/5G security landscape. This visual identity effectively communicates OneLayer's values of security, flexibility, innovation, and expertise, while resonating with their target audience.
Our process demonstrates how thoughtful design evolution can strengthen a brand's market position and communication effectiveness.
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Let’s revisit the early stages of Cynerio's visual identity development, a project that challenged us to visualize the complex world of healthcare cybersecurity.
Our journey began with extensive research into hospital structures and medical equipment, forming the bedrock of our design process. This deep dive into the medical device landscape informed every aspect of our creative approach.
Key Elements of Cynerio's Early Brand Identity:
1. Logo Concept: A beam of light penetrating medical devices, symbolizing Cynerio's ability to provide visibility and identify risks within healthcare systems.
2. Cross-sectional Views: We created detailed illustrations offering an 'inside look' at hospitals and medical devices, reinforcing the idea of thorough analysis and protection.
3. Character Mascots:
- Switch, the protagonist: Representing Cynerio's protective presence with its illuminating gaze.
- Jepro, the antagonist : The adversarial force symbolizing potential threats.
4. Visual Language:
- Detailed illustrations of medical devices
- Abstract iconography
- Grid-based layouts suggesting interconnectivity
The centerpiece of this visual identity was the concept of illumination - both literal and metaphorical. We used beams of light, cross-sections, and detailed illustrations to communicate Cynerio's role in shedding light on the hidden vulnerabilities within healthcare systems.
While Cynerio's brand has evolved significantly since these initial concepts, this early work laid the foundation for a unique aesthetic that effectively communicated the company's mission. What set our approach apart was its stark contrast to industry norms. At a time when competitors relied heavily on stock photos of doctors and patients in surgeries, we developed a visual language that delved deeper into the technological core of healthcare cybersecurity.
This innovative approach not only differentiated Cynerio but also elevated the conversation around healthcare security. It showcases how in-depth research and creative conceptualization can translate complex technological concepts into compelling visual narratives, moving beyond surface-level imagery to truly capture the essence of a brand's mission.
This glimpse into our design process for Cynerio demonstrates the power of visual storytelling in bringing abstract ideas to life, a principle that continues to guide our approach to brand identity creation. By challenging industry conventions, we created a visual identity that not only stood out but also more accurately represented the cutting-edge nature of Cynerio's work in healthcare cybersecurity.
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