Intro
In july 2020 I was asked to work on a complete redesign of the visual identity of a startup that was born three months before. Their existing logo was no more than a casually chosen clipart. The name of the startup is isendu.
My first aim in redesigning the logo was to try to describe what it was standing for: a sort statement saying: "I Send You". Their business is a web app able to connect small to medium e-commerce owners to every different couriers' platform in order to help them in having only one tool for controlling and taking care of everything from sale to deliver.
The process: a flexible visual identity system
I had two starting point: the first one was describing the name, the second was to describe what they were doing. going from one point to another passing through a variable multiplicity of possibilities.
These two premises brought me to facing the visual design system seeing it as a variable design system, not a fixed one. A system that shifts from persistence to variability ”.
I gained inspiration from the Bauhaus philosophy of design and mostly from the Kandinsky seminal studies "Dance curves". My goal was to be able to follow a process pursuing that level of abstraction
Trying to express the basics of isendu, I tried to sketch their essence in a scheme like this
I had one first element, the vertical one, that could be seen as "the sender", then a central element, the movement, and finally a third one, the receiver of the action.
I had everything. So I designed every part of the logo based on the element coming from a grid on square module
The process continued adding other layers of variation in the system. The first element is fixed, the central element is having many versions, the last one is basically the same, changing only two times. Other variable elements: colors
Then I designed the entire brand bible and I uploaded online on a platform that allowed me to give them a tool that can be used everywhere and changed whenever is needed:
A visual design system based on variation and illustration
In the meantime I was working on another task for them: a series of illustrations for their blog based on some premises that I gave myself to overcome the fact that there wasn't a direct relation between the content of the article and the illustration. So I designed the illustration series as an abstract illustration series more related to the "spirit" of the brand than to the (almost) technical subjets of the articles.
It has been a winning idea because the illustration language became immediately part of the visual identity system (not only illustrations for the blog) and I'm currently designing new ones every month.
A total design process
Suddenly I started working for isendu as both Creative Director and illustrator (currently as of today I am the Design Director), and I've been working even as an architect, designing their physical spaces of their headquarters in Firenze: a big 1800's palazzo that is now fulfilled with customized wallpapers designed by me and printed and installed by local artisans.
The same approach has been used to create unique lamps, by printing my illustrations on glicée fine art prints and giving them to one of the last lamp artisans in Firenze. The result is a work of art that makes us feel home when working
The main staircase has been treated in the same way, but with the "it" touch: a unique illustration is running all around the four walls on the two floors
Architecture: as a canvas
Working with vibrant colors from a dynamic palette and with illustration in the third dimension, into our physical environment is the key to a better living in this everyday working place. Even in challenging spaces such as one of the latest expansion, under the roof of the palazzo
An ongoing artistic process
As Creative Director I am now creating an illustrator artists' roster to work with me, every week, in designing an illustration for the blog, with the same level of freedom that I had: the only given brief is related to express the mood of isendu and what they do in general, using colors from a given color palette as the only rule to respect.
As of today there are five illustrators enrolled, someone is very young (two former students of mine from my illustration course for The Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at the Washington University of St. Louis): Emily Bielski and Selina Wu. Then I have a florentine illustrator (Nicola Giorgio) and an illustrator based in Israel and in Florence (Izhar Cohen) and another young illustrator from Milano (Daniele Tofi Morganti).
My goal is to transform the isendu blog into an artistic platform