Tencent Sans
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Tencent is one of the world’s largest companies, and is a leading provider of Internet value-added services. The company is most well-known for its messaging app, WeChat, but that service is just part of Tencent’s story. Its mobile technology enables users to take advantage of text messaging, push-to-talk voice messaging, video conferencing, video games, photo and video sharing, social feeds, appointment booking, payments of bills and fines, transportation scheduling, and much more. The company owns a host of social media platforms, entertainment subsidiaries and payment services. While Tencent has long been a force in its home country of China, the company’s plans extend well beyond its borders. In fact, chairman and CEO Ma Huateng told The Economist that his goal is for Tencent to “preside over the global tech revolution of the future.” With such ambitious goals and a growing amount of brand awareness across the world, Tencent realized the need to expand its brand voice and adapt it to reflect the company it wanted to be—both today and in the future. A big part of increasing its voice was the decision to expand its corporate typeface to provide a consistent experience for customers, no matter where or how they were using Tencent’s products and services. The company approached Monotype to design a bespoke typeface which would convey its vision of “innovation, responsibility and enablement.” Ultimately, it needed to communicate not just with the brand’s Chinese market, but also with its growing base of users around the world, including those in Japanese and Latin speaking countries. Monotype worked closely with Tencent to create an updated logotype to give the letters a more contemporary feel that better communicated the brand’s dedication to innovation and technology. Named Tencent Sans, the letters of the updated logo sport a “cutting edge” look and feel that was deliberately designed on the entry and exit strokes, and served as examples for the rest of the characters that would comprise the typeface design–in both Asian and Latin scripts. For the Latin script, which includes languages like English, Spanish, French, and more, Monotype’s type designers used the Chinese characters as inspiration and took special care to understand how the Chinese characters are drawn, so that the Chinese and Latin scripts could share a “true partnership” between the different writing systems. Monotype also created Japanese Kana, a syllabic Japanese script, abstracting strokes and shapes from the Chinese design. Chinese characters are very structured and designed to fit into a box, whereas Japanese (Hiragana) ideographs have a more organic rounded shape. Monotype took special care to balance the hard impressions of Chinese writing with the organic style of Japanese writing to ensure easy readability with balance and stability. A brand’s typeface is a critical part of conveying a brand’s voice and identity, and Tencent Sans is no exception. With this design, Tencent is able to carry a consistent and authentic brand message far beyond China’s borders and establish itself as a leading innovator for new audiences across geographies.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
One of the most innovative aspects of this project was the different design strategies that the team used to create the Tencent Sans typeface. For example, there is no such thing as italics in Chinese writing, so there was no traditional theory on which to base the design. In fact, Chinese characters have a tendency to become “looser” when not drawn upright. The team spent a lot of time testing and perfecting the slant used for the Chinese script and applying optical corrections to each character to achieve the look that Tencent wanted for its branding. Additionally, the team worked to achieve a balance of forward momentum with legibility by taking a very careful approach to the different strokes of each character. The Chinese design adopted the principles of Zuoshouyoufang, which contracts the strokes on the left side of the character while allowing the strokes on the right side to be looser. This reduces any potential sense of dragging, and creates a feeling of speed and forward motion that Tencent wanted to come through in its branding. The focus on design innovation carried over to the Japanese characters as well. The team abstracted strokes from the Chinese design and applied them to the Japanese characters. After creating thousands of samples, the team condensed the strokes down to their most basic forms and used them to create balance with the original Chinese designs. The Japanese design respects traditional shapes and curves while embracing the linear and mechanical features of the design. For the Latin script, the team recognized that a very geometric design can actually hinder legibility, so it took great care to round edges, soften shapes and open up characters that usually close naturally (like the lower-case a and e). And to give the Latin script an added sense of personality, certain angular letters like A, M, N and Y were designed to be squarer, while others like the V, W, X and Z retained their sharp angles. Each of the scripts that comprise Tencent Sans also features sharp cuts into certain letters and strokes to signify Tencent’s effort to be a cutting-edge brand. In fact, every aspect of the design of the typeface is meant to balance its legibility with the spirit of the Tencent brand. The result is that the typeface – and all of the design innovations it incorporates – helps Tencent carry its message to its multinational customer base.
Who worked on the project?
Elvis Guo, Advanced Project Manager, Tencent Winson Yu, Marketing Manager, Tencent Leo Lai, Multimedia and Brand Designer, Tencent Julius Hui, Senior Type Designer, Monotype (lead type designer) Akira Kobayashi, Type Director, Monotype Steve Matteson, Creative Type Director, Monotype Robin Hui, Chief Type Designer / Production Manager, Monotype Juan Villanueva, Type Designer, Monotype Sammy Fung, Type Designer, Monotype Ryota Doi, Type Designer, Monotype
View the project video: https://vimeo.com/242760382
The Balance
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Before Dotdash launched The Balance in late 2016, the finance and career digital landscape felt intimidating and too stuffy for the everyday reader. The Balance flipped that narrative on its head by taking a personal, empowering approach to provide expert-advice without assuming users know dividends from distributions. It delivers clear, practical advice that strengthens users’ lifelong relationship with money and encourages smarter spending and investment. With a light and bright aesthetic, The Balance provides a fresh user experience with a unique focus on millennials and females looking to take control of their finances. Because of the depth and breadth of its content, The Balance splits its content into four categories: The Balance for financial advice, The Balance Careers for planning and career tips, The Balance Small Business for entrepreneurs, and The Balance Everyday for day-to-day hints for earning and saving. With 20 years of search data (stretching back to the start of the internet), The Balance was created from a pre-understanding of the types of content that its readers are looking for when it comes to managing finances. Using proprietary tools exclusive to Dotdash's extensive data library, the work of Dotdash’s accomplished data team informed every decision in The Balance’s design, right down to the color scheme. Each aspect of The Balance, from easily-digestible content and specialized categories, transform the task of money-management. A soft color palette, clean design, and crisp typography are a few of the features that translate the voice of a close friend and an experience that feels personal – even a little bit fun.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
The Balance, a Dotdash brand, launched just over one year ago in a crowded digital environment among fierce competition. In the brief period since launch, The Balance managed to set itself apart from every other digital finance destination with a laser focus on user experience, intent, and serving a predominantly female audience. That approach resonates with users, as evidenced by the The Balance’s rapid growth: Since launch, monthly US unique visitors have grown 197%, from 6.5MM in September 2016 to over 19MM in March 2018. Over the same period, Bloomberg grew 44%, Fortune grew 18%, Cnn Money grew 20%, and IBTimes declined 73%. The Balance is the #6 site in the ad-supported Financial News/Research category.
Who worked on the project?
The Dotdash Design Team
View the project video:
The BMO200 Fountain
Company Mosaic
Introduction Date January 24, 2017
Project Website
Why is this project worthy of an award?
As the bank that’s been here to help since 1817, the Bank of Montreal challenged us to mark their 200th birthday with a gift that gave back to the communities they serve. The result was the BMO200 fountain: an interactive, kinetic sculpture designed to help people wish it forward. A nod to the bank’s past and catalyst for a better future, this 17-foot-tall travelling installation was designed to bring consumers into the fold as the bank celebrated its bicentennial. Made entirely without water, over 50,000 flip dots originally found in stock tickers were used to create the illusion of liquid in both sight and sound. While materials were analog, wishing was anything but. By connecting their mobile device to the fountain, viewers tossed a digital coin, the fountain reacting in real-time to their wish with a customized animation that flowed up, down, or across the streams. To avoid consumer inertia while wishing, a subset of categories was created to help guide the process. From green to happiness to community, a graphic language was crafted for each and adapted into commemorative digital coins and a series of corresponding animations. At a time when screens are becoming commonplace, the BMO200 fountain combined the digital and physical worlds in a rarely seen way. With over 250,000 unique interactions, on average surpassing two minutes, it exceeded benchmarks by 300% and garnered over 9 million impressions via foot traffic alone. The fact that the fountain was created, tested in VR and built in just over six months is a feat in and of itself. A feat only surpassed by the wishes it inspired.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
We live in a world where innovations happen at a breakneck speed. In advertising however, it can be slower, as finding clients who are brave enough make the impossible, let along front the bill for it are few and far between. So what was so unique and innovative about the BMO200 fountain? Was it the hundreds of thousands of flip dots that worked in concert to make over 36 unique animations? The architectural sorcery that ensured the cantilever stood without fail for almost a year? The team of never before assembled designers, artists, craftsmen, creatives and coders that came together to make the impossible, possible? Or the sheer fact that on their 200th birthday, a bank decided to buck convention, park the cakes and confetti and create real social change? Net net, projects like this rarely happen in this industry. From inception to execution, it was the team behind it that truly made it unique and innovative at each and every turn.
Who worked on the project?
Group Creative Director, Writer: Jess Willis Creative Director, Art Director: Brad Van Schaik Copywriters: Marisa Faustino, Jef Moore Agency Producer: Sumit Ajwani & Kirsten White Artists: Jennifer Marman, Daniel Borins Interactive Experience Design: Secret Location Technical Fabrication: Globacore & Taylor Group
View the project video: https://vimeo.com/254842465
The Dental Market Brand Identity
Company Test Monki
Introduction Date May 25, 2017
Project Website
Why is this project worthy of an award?
While planning to renovate his office, Dr. Jimmy Sarant knew his business was at a brand identity crossroads. He had several names for the active practice--Carolina Dental Spa and Sarant Dentistry as well as using the URL strikingsmiles.com. The different names were confusing for patients and hard to build equity. To help differentiate in a way that would connect with existing and potential patients, we renamed his business The Dental Market and moved the brand identity to a more upscale and modern feel that also paired appropriately with his local Raleigh, NC roots. We tagged the practice “A luxury dentist with hometown spirit.” We really wanted the brand materials to use photography of Raleigh. Since the client’s hobby is photography, we had him take most of the photos.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Dr. Sarant wanted a cool patient referral program that would be interesting enough for patients to WANT to give it to their friends. We came up with a perforated card that the current patient tore off and gave to their friend. A real penny was glued to the card (heads up, of course), adding another level to the meaning of “lucky you”.
Who worked on the project?
Suzy Simmons-Chief Creative Officer and Creative Director, Brad Petak-Chief Engagement Officer, Sofi Cruz-designer, Gabby Nguyen-Design Director, Sarah Wright-designer
View the project video:
The EcoAtlas
Company Studio Roberto Rovira
Introduction Date April 20, 2017
Project Website http://bit.ly/ecologicalatlas
Why is this project worthy of an award?
You would think that by now we would have solved global environmental problems given the immense power that a digital age has put at our fingertips. Yet somehow, exponential technological progress seems to have largely distanced us from the natural world. The EcoAtlas is a comprehensive design and visualization tool that bridges art and science, and leverages the power of data and technology to illustrate the dynamics of living things. Bird migrations, flower bloom cycles, crop cultivation seasons, butterfly patterns, fish spawning seasons, and the changing patterns of other living things are conveyed through visual mappings. Why is this important? With increased appetites for development and expansion that are often at odds with the natural world, we need new tools—simpler and more elegant tools—with which to efficiently visualize, design, and imagine mutually complementary and necessarily interdependent intersections between the built and the natural. I see the EcoAtlas as a profound shift in the way that technology can be applied to help us understand and engage with the natural environment. It is a visualization platform that bridges art, science, design, and technology and intuitively communicates information that is otherwise overwhelming. It makes natural patterns understandable and aims for beauty out of a conviction that a sustainable and resilient future requires an understanding of aesthetics and design to facilitate informed decision-making. As a landscape architect, designer, and artist whose background and education in both fine arts and engineering have informed my personal and professional arc, being able to make the connection among art, technology, and the environment is of particular significance. Because I live and work in Miami and because I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, I am convinced that the type of environmental devastation that has wreaked havoc in both of these regions in the last year, requires creative solutions that blend disciplinary strands more than ever. The EcoAtlas is worthy of an award because it has the potential to craft a hopeful and inspiring future that leverages our legacy as a creative and problem-solving species at one of the more important moments in our history. Through intuitive visualizations, the EcoAtlas gets us closer to thriving in the face of existential threats by celebrating and communicating the qualities, character and patterns of our surrounding environment.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
While the EcoAtlas builds on extensive inventories of living things available in print and online, it holistically communicates relationships among entire species and documents their changes over time, pointing to how they could be integrated into a cohesive vision that understands how human beings are part of a larger dynamic and interdependent system. By communicating a constant state of change in an easy-to-understand graphic format that can be drilled down to a micro level, the EcoAtlas becomes a powerful tool capable of sifting through an overwhelming wealth of information that would otherwise get in the way of understanding. In the same way that carefully illustrated maps and botanical prints captured the imaginations of empires hell-bent on expansion and exploration centuries ago, so too can today's technology be applied to reaffirm the value and wonder of the natural world in ways that it never has. As captivating as deptictions of the natural world are, it is safe to say that we have yet to fully leverage the synthesis of art and technology in modeling the dynamics of nature’s data. And yet, this is precisely the kind of critical role that technology can play in giving us an immediate understanding of the environment we depend on. The EcoAtlas aspires to transform the clarity with which we organize and relate to the natural world’s staggering complexity. By leveraging the inherent beauty of biodiversity through intuitive visualizations of its patterns, we can better understand, engage, and ultimately celebrate it as more informed, more capable, and more enlightened stewards.
Who worked on the project?
Roberto Rovira, Principal, Alejandro Pérez, Andrés Pineda, Anwar Morales, Brennan Baxley, Bruno Sanabria, Daniela Menéndez, Emily Vandenoever, Erika Gottsegen, José Alvarez, José Fonseca, Kevin Arrieta, Luis Jiménez, Mario Graña, Martina González, Meredith Lambert, Rufino Gil, Ryan Correia, Séfora Chavarría, Valeria Quintanilla
View the project video: http://bit.ly/SRR_EcoatlasVideo
