As a live, experimental environment, Kusama needed a brand that didn’t just tolerate risk—but encouraged it. A place where experimentation was the norm and failure was met with admiration, not shame.
This project reframed Kusama’s identity as the proving ground for raw, fast, and unapologetically real innovation.
Role: Design & Art Direction
Year: 2019
It’s Time
The Challenge
The core challenge was balancing chaos with the cultural roots of cypherpunk nostalgia. The brand had to engage developers through a bold, disruptive aesthetic while clearly signaling that Kusama was a true sandbox—where experimentation, instability, and failure were not only allowed, but expected.
Strategy
We built around a single metaphor: The canary in a coal mine.
A symbol of early warning, risk, and resilience, it became the lens for every decision—from language to visuals. Rather than reassuring users, the brand set expectations clearly: danger is the feature.
System Thinking
We designed a system grounded in low fidelity, error adjacent, and oldschool computer screens.
A visual language that embraces tension, contrast, and imperfection.
A bold, unapologetic set of taglines.
A flexible logic designed to spread across social and community spaces.
Applications
The identity came to life across the website, social channels, and a community toolkit. Taglines like: “Expect Chaos,” “Risk and Danger,” and “No Promises” became rallying cries.
Impact
The project ignited a strong cultural response within the ecosystem. Kusama evolved from a technical network into a movement, attracting deeply aligned developers and users.
The brand’s momentum was so strong that an anonymous, self-organized “secret society” emerged—marking allegiance through the Canary, both symbolically and on-chain.
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This project was developed at the Web3 Foundation, in collaboration with Parity Technologies. Special thanks to Gavin Wood for his support in what can best be described as an experimental brand journey.