Studio Oker’s identity for JIDU mirrors the high-tech nature of the AI-powered electric vehicle

JIDU is a joint electric vehicle venture between multinational car manufacturer Geely and leading AI company Baidu. The companies, headquartered in Hangzhou and Beijing respectively, have combined their two areas of expertise to create the ‘future of mobility.’ Thanks to its combination of cutting-edge engineering and state-of-the-art AI tech, JIDU features level four autonomy – the highest level integrated into a car – which includes accurate speech semantic recognition for human-vehicle communication. Heading into the rapidly expanding EV market, JIDU needed an identity that would position the venture in a unique way whilst embodying the ambitions of the collaboration. This was the task of Studio Oker, a design practice found in Stavanger, Norway. Partner and Designer Baard Kolstad reveals that the process was slightly different than the usual branding project, owing to the highly secretive nature of the car’s design. “One of the biggest challenges was that the design of the car was highly secretive, so the process was quite unusual in the ideation phase,” he tells us. “When we had a potential direction for the symbol that we wanted to explore,” he continues, “we began by sending it to the JIDU brand team, they then 3D-printed the symbol and tested it on the actual car model.” Throughout the team’s explorations, the core idea – a pixel – was omnipresent. This became the key element in the visual language, with the small square mirroring both the digital-first approach and symbolising data as a foundation for autonomy. “Combined with a simplified geometric ‘J,’ we felt it stood out in the category with its asymmetric composition and bold look,” Kolstad notes, describing the wordmark.