Why Caserne treated Tech Icons more like a gallery than a feed

Before any visual decisions were made, Caserne decided that Tech Icons feels much more like an exhibition space than a typical media platform. The Montreal-based studio’s identity for the London-based intelligence platform – built for investors, asset managers, sovereign funds and institutional decision-makers – treats every story as something to be approached rather than scrolled past, with white as the structural foundation of the entire system. “The starting point for us was to think of the identity not as a conventional media layer, but as a curated space, closer to a gallery or a museum than to a traditional digital publication,” explains Ugo Varin-Lachapelle, Creative Director at Caserne. “While the palette includes shades of grey, white is the dominant field. For us, it represents absolute transparency and a sense of transcendence, a neutral surface that allows content to coexist without interference.” This framing has practical consequences. Reportage photography and commissioned work from AI artists – a recurring feature of Tech Icons’ editorial output – are placed with the room a gallery affords its artworks. The homepage is structured almost like a terminal so that each story carries weight rather than competing with a dozen others for the same glance.