Pendant Branding

Pendant
2021 → 2023

Name, logo, branding, strategy, art direction, and early brand management for Pendant, the HR-focused product from Banzai.

After freelancing full-time for two years, I returned to Banzai in 2021 to work on a new HR- and employee benefits-related product. It would have an entirely new name and brand, though I was told it should still feel like it came from the people who made Banzai. As product lead, I was responsible for leading branding and product design on what would become Pendant.

My process in the early days of working on Pendant was a holistic one, with the branding influencing the product design and vice versa.

I chose GT Flexa as the brand type family for a few reasons: it’s beautifully drawn and tonally distinct, its endless flexibility would be suitable for the wide range of use cases we’d need it for, and its unique character lent the brand a friendly voice. Flexa is the backbone of the brand, giving Pendant a voice that is inviting and decisive; this is especially important because Pendant, being a product about employee benefits, would need to be a trustworthy resource during people’s difficult life changes, like having a baby or leaving a job.

The color palette is bright and saturated, with colors reminiscent of light refracted through a prism.

I worked with Pendant’s in-house illustrator Cristi Flores to nail down the illustration style. Cristi’s illustration work brings the brand to life with organic shapes and delicate application of Pendant’s color palette.

I also worked with photographer Trevor Christensen on a set of employee portraits for Pendant. Their heavy use of black draws focus to the subjects’ faces and makes the photos harmonize with the rest of Pendant’s color palette.

Related projects → Pendant Icons, Pendant Brand Guidelines

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Development
Kendall Buchanan, Zac Boswell, Mardo Del Cid, Austin Finlinson, Curtis Summers

Project Management
Jeff Lord

Copywriting
Nikole Rios

Illustration
Cristi Flores

Additional Design
Chelsea Miller, Greg Soper

Photography
Trevor Christensen

Pendant Icons

Pendant
2023

Set of 150+ icons for Pendant, the new HR product from Banzai. I drew the icons as part of Pendant’s larger brand package; although their primary purpose is to quickly communicate ideas in the product, I also wanted them to embody Pendant’s sense of playfulness and good humor.

My other stylistic concern was that they harmonize with GT Flexa, Pendant’s brand type family: for that reason, the icons use a simple geometric base with little refinement. Square shapes maintain their sharp corners, and round shapes use an exaggerated ‘squircle’ form that mirrors Flexa’s circular glyphs.

As with all my icon projects, I’ve developed an underlying grid system and ruleset to maintain consistency across the whole icon set, regardless of who adds to it in the future.

Related projects → Pendant Branding, Pendant Brand Guidelines, Banzai Icons

Pendant Brand Guidelines

Pendant
2023

Brand guidelines for Pendant. The guidelines outline proper usage of Pendant’s brand assets, including logo, color, typography, and so on.

Unlike past style guide projects I’ve worked on—which were simple PDFs I wrote and laid out in InDesign—I built this document in Figma with the intention of publishing and sharing it online.

You can view some samples below, or view the guidelines on the Figma community site.

Related projects → Pendant Branding, Pendant Icons

Logos & Marks

Various Clients
2016 → Ongoing

Library of logos and logomarks drawn for various clients and personal projects.

Updated periodically.

1. Goofy Industries (2023)
   
2. Banzai (2023)
3. My Famicase Exhibition → Ploomish™ (2023)
   
4. Pendant (2023)
5. RAID v2 → 1P2P (2022)
6. My Famicase Exhibition → fuchsia 800 (2022)
7. My Famicase Exhibition → fuchsia 400 (2021)
   
8. My Famicase Exhibition → Plastic Tactics (2020)
   
9. MinnMax (2020)
10. MM — Scrapped (2020)
11. The Plains — Scrapped (2019)
12. Maridia (2018)
13. Sego Awards (2018)
14. Banzai Manager (2018)
15. So Many Damn Books (2016)

Goofy Industries

Self-initiated / With Friends
2023

Name and logo for Goofy Industries, a fictional corporation that trades in post-dystopian human interactive experiences.

I drew this logo as part of a collaborative project with some friends of mine.