Outland’s brand for design platform Vizcom puts process over polish

Vizcom is an AI-powered design platform for product and industrial designers, built to turn a rough sketch into a full-fidelity 3D render and take an idea all the way through to production. Its users are industrial design teams at companies from Ford to New Balance, so the identity has to hold its own in front of enterprise design departments while appealing to individual creatives. To create it, Vizcom turned to Minnesota and Wales-based design studio Outland. Rather than begin with the polished render at the end of that journey, Outland shaped the identity around the process that produces it – a territory they named ‘The Messy Canvas.’ It results in a brand world drawn from the organised chaos of making, where sketches, prototypes, material samples, happy accidents and constant iteration are as much a part of the identity as the finished render they lead to. “AI and many design tools are super focused on just the output, a single, high-fidelity image,” explains Vizcom’s Head of Marketing, Emily Lonetto. “Vizcom helps designers get to that final output, but celebrates the iteration, imperfections and accidental discoveries that come along the way in the creative process.” “Early on, we ruled out building a brand that would feel linear or static,” Outland’s Founder & Design Director Jordan Jenkins tells us, “for the simple reason that creativity isn’t. It’s iterative, exploratory and full of unexpected moments.” The same system had to stand in front of enterprise teams as confidently as it invited play. “One of the most valuable conversations we had with the client centred on where the identity needed more restraint,” Jenkins recalls. “We kept coming back to the idea of a billboard in the Financial District or a poster in a creative studio. It became a simple way of judging the work.” Enterprise communications lean on restrained typography, photography and refined layouts, while the more expressive elements are used sparingly. “The biggest thing we wanted to make sure was that we didn’t lose the power of Vizcom with a brand that was too playful,” notes Lonetto.