Brand Rework and Development:
The Molecule Protocol
The first thing that caught my eye about the Molecule Brand was the symbol, a fantastically minimal mark that was packed with meaning. I didn't know about it at the time, but it's scientific meaning and relevance formed the foundation of the brand, supported by its slogan; the next evolution in drug development.
This slogan is what first intrigued me, but what did it really mean? An evolution of what? Where was it coming from and where was it going to? These were the questions I had in my mind and from which I began to find the answers to as I plunged into the first few projects for the brand.
See more articles from Molecule's medium publication at https://medium.com/molecule-blog
The Molecule brand starts with the ideas of open science.
Molecule creates an enormous amount of original written content centred the brand mission, vision, and values.
It was one of my first jobs to discover how to make all the article covers and how to retain brand recognition based on the established first version of the brand guidelines.
My addition to the brand guidelines started with defining a short set of guidelines relating to the use of photographic imagery, for background use.
Primary Colours
Building on the concepts of open science, Molecule stands for disruption of the norm, however at the same time, not seeking to destroy the current framework. Molecule allows for an open community and welcomes the involvement of anyone with its positive and energetic brand archetype of the “Hero”.
So as I saw it, the positivity comes from the primary colour palette made up of a soft transition from green to blue, evoking a natural flow of and a sense of welcoming, transparency, and calmness.
Secondary Colours
Continuing from above - its bolder secondary colour palette is inspired by the “dark theme” used in modern user interfaces and visual communications, showcasing a set of brighter hues, evoking excitement and a burst of energy just as a “catalyst” is used to jumpstart a chemical reaction.
These colours are the same as the primary colour but they have much richer, brighter hues, which work on light backgrounds as well as they do on dark backgrounds.
Shapes and Imagery used
The Molecule brand is inspired by an ecosystem of coming together and creating ripples of innovation across all the Sciences. This is shown in its visual brand identity system based on minimalistic, simple, light, dashed lines and shapes representing “paths” and “trajectories” radiating from points in space to demonstrate how inspiration begins.
To echo these ideas in all the marketing collateral that was needed during the beginning of 2019 - mid year - I used these set of shapes where I could - from banners, social media posts and banners, and business cards.
Social Media Content
Logo
The Molecule logo is more than just a random shape - it’s what we refer to in science as a 2p-orbital.
A 2p Orbital is a mathematical function that describes the wave-like behaviour of either one or a pair of electrons around the nucleus of an atom (which consists of electrons, protons, and neutrons).
Therefore, the easiest way to then animate this was to have one dot tracing the figure 8 shape of the logo from one side, and another from the opposite side. The square plane at the centre of the logo simply shows the plane that the orbital lies in and the orientation, so it would only need to appear. In the end as the dot "orbits" It would trace the main figure, closely resembling an infinity sign, something that is then inherently easy to make a loop.
First workings for Alpha Launch name, and Web development.
Brand short paragraph descriptor:
“Accelerating innovation in the pharmaceutical industry by connecting scientists, patients and industry to advance drug development in a collaborative ecosystem”.
But how does the Molecule brand tackle this greater vision? Where do we begin?
The answer lies in taking small steps to make a big difference. So a name was needed to start a succession of stages of production for Molecule and I was tasked to design, research and write out this set of named phases.
The first one being, Molecule Catalyst.
The Stages of Social Change was the concept that got the greatest amount of interest as a direction to go in with a set of staged/phased brand names.
Stemming from the ideas symbolised in the 2p Orbital mark of the Molecule brand, what better sequence of ideas could there be to forge a path of social change than one of “chemical bonds”?
Bonds that not only bind atoms together to create the molecules we study but those that bind us as a society, keeping us together through collaboration and cooperation.
While the names for the stages of the Molecule product are going to be general and easily understood as they are developed, the pattern in which the names form will be from Emergence through to Coalescence and ending in Cooperation.
Catalyst marks the start of this process for Molecule in a predictive roadmap of milestones, features, and components as the product grows.
The themed names/phases not only mark the distinction of one phase to the next but also of the story illustrating the brand journey of the underlying Molecule protocol.
Messaging
To begin to communicate all of this meaning, a landing page had to built, and so I completed it in Webflow.
Our message in the first phase of our broader vision is simple, “we supply fundraising”.
Catalyst is an experiment of an ecosystem that aims to bring together the fundamental parts of our protocol AND the simplest way to use it; as a mixed portal/platform fundraising model for scientific research and development.
see more of the design that was made for the Molecule Catalyst Landing page, here.
Marketing
The last task I had to perform, as we made our announcement of the alpha, was to edit down content to be used on the site and in all promotional visual communications on social media, direct email and presentations/events.
On Molecule Catalyst, the focus of securing funding shifts away from appealing to grant providers, exciting the public and giving them access to novel research causes and projects. Molecule Catalyst was designed to provide a novel crowdfunding solution for research projects in drug development and bring new treatments closer to patients.
Ultimately, crowdfunding democratises research funding and directly benefits society by bringing more people into science.
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