Brand identity
Illustration
Motion design
Brand guidelines
Market research
Copywriting

Okcoin

With a mission to make crypto investing and trading easily accessible to anyone around the world, Okcoin was in need of a rebrand that matched its ambition. Together, with the internal marketing and design teams, we developed a brand that honors the company’s past, present, and its future vision for a new and accessible crypto-economy for everyone. With so many crypto brands run by insiders for insiders, we saw a huge opportunity to create a brand expression centered around inclusivity and bringing crypto to the real world.

Previous brand identity.

We partnered with Okcoin’s leaders and creative teams to build a cohesive system that embraces the spirit of their mission to create a more inclusive world in crypto.

Maintaining Okcoin’s original foundational shape of the circle and adding this new lens of ancient coins, we brought it to a digital realm with the addition of a pixel/bit and created a literal ‘bit’coin for the logomark. We then created a color palette that’s based and named after real-life crypto legends and words unique to the industry.

There are some fascinating histories to be found in currencies, both physical and digital, ancient coins and early crypto. We wanted Okcoin’s new brand to act as a guide through these worlds by using pop culture references and history to relate the human world to that of digital currency. We wanted to reflect this in Okcoin’s brand voice, which we specified as relevant, engaging, energetic, entertaining—but always educational. We compared it to your favorite “with it” college professor who manages to teach complex subjects using current culture and conversational language.

With Okcoin’s origins in China, we looked to ancient currencies and the art of minting for inspiration. Old coinage, like those from Japan, France, Korea, India, and Norway to name a few, had holes punched out of the middle of them, either for aesthetics or utility. For some, the holes allowed these coins to be threaded together—a concept that we related to blockchain. Today, ancient Chinese coins are seen as a symbol of wealth. Displaying them attracts financial luck, giving them is a wish for prosperity.

Collaboration at its finest

Special thanks to the Okcoin team:
Hong Fang: Co-founder and CEO
Haider Refique: CMO
Dana Van Etten: Brand lead
Angela Tolosa: Brand designer
Tianrui Geng: Brand designer
Dongwan Xie: Product designer
Zelda Zhang: Product designer
Irwin Sol: Product designer

Illustrations in collaboration with Study Hall Creative:
Matt Yerman, Alex Sheyn

Brand strategy in collaboration with Brand Performance Labs:
Mark Mulhern, Jonathan Isaac

CōLab team: Jason Mamaril, Salih Abdul-Karim, Yu Rong, Allen Mask