Digital Seals • VLA

Digital Seals is a Berlin-based agency where I worked from 2019 to 2023.

Towards the end of 2022, the company was preparing to be acquired by the .msg group, so the team decided to do a major redesign. During the creative workshops, the founders chose 3 values on which the visual identity should be based: Quick-witted, tech-savvy, and nostalgic.

Exploration

I started working with another talented junior designer, Esther Streich. Our task was to find unique fonts that would set the tone for the company's individuality.

As the lead designer, I organized a series of creative workshops where we gathered font references, evaluated their application in context, and conducted voting sessions. Some fonts seemed too playful to us, while others didn't work well in small sizes or simply lacked certain weights.

Next, we had to choose the color scheme. The tricky part was to marry the vibrant Digital Seals blue with the desaturated red-wine color of .msg group, which clashed when put together. I found an elegant solution by using an intermediate shade of blue that complemented both colors.

In addition to working on the primary blue, I decided to push the boundaries of the brief and also work on some accent solutions.

Surt by Blaze type. Works perfectly in both uppercase and lowercase.

Non Natural Grotesk. Really nice typeface, but looked "jumpy" in lowercase.

Attila Sans was picked by Esther. The typeface has amazing letters, but stakeholders found it too playful.

Bastardo Grotesk*ish seemed like a crazy choice for a company that works in legal and insurance technology. But we decided to give it a try.

Everett is a super beautiful, but a hyped up typeface. So we decided to look for something more niche.

Gustavo looked fresh, especially the lowercase "r" pierced right in our hearts. We would choose the typeface if the stakeholders didn't see Surt.

Elements

As we kept working on the project, I started to add more details to the visual design during the exploration stage. And since I always like to think about how the company would look on social media, like Instagram, the design was created in a 1:1 format.

The shortlisted fonts and color scheme helped me create eye-catching cards, which I also decided to enhance with graphics.

While working on the nostalgia and tech values, I realized that the founders had a strong connection to digital products from the past, which heavily relied on pixel graphics. Therefore, as the main art direction, I chose pixels as the smallest unit from which everything would be built.

.msg group red wine color with the transitional light blue.

.msg received a secondary color, so I decided to play around with the accents.

Vivid color mix to support developers.

The foundation. Primary, secondary and tertiary colors.

Secondary blue with accent color.

Tertiary blue with accent color.

Result

The concept was positively received within the team and is now undergoing further development. The next step will be the website development, taking into account the chosen design solutions.

Website
→ digitalseals.de