Current
Head of Brand & Senior Designer
at IBM Quantum
Austin, TX
See the latest
Scratchpad (coming soon)
Say hello
Current
Head of Brand & Senior Designer
at IBM Quantum
Austin, TX
See the latest
Scratchpad (coming soon)
Say hello
Since 2019, the IBM Quantum Brand has gone through multiple evolutions as the Quantum organization grew from a graduate of IBM Research to a fully developed business unit. As the hardware has changed throughout the years, so has the visual identity, and I have been lucky enough to help develop several evolutions of the brand.
In 2023 we undertook the biggest rebrand yet, resulting in a system that has (so far) stood the test of time and supported the next era of quantum computing.
My roles
Art direction, Visual design, Illustration
In collaboration with
Field
Jamie Jones
Timeframe
2023
Our task was to deliver a world-class, wholistic brand that sat within the larger IBM brand ecysostem, but also reflected the more innovative and experimental nature of quantum. Some key aspects of our approach included:
- How do we bring humanity to quantum computing?
- How do we visualize the concept of quantum physics? Can we embrace a dynamic/generative brand that is always in-between states?
- How do we balance our brand expression to both very technical and non-technical?
- How can we create something that is an extension/reflection of System Two in terms of design tonality and POV?
Project Deliverables
Our end goal was a complete brand system showcased on ibm.com/brand, utilizing the Experience Guide format. This would include overall guidance for public usage as well as all consumable brand assets. While simulataneously building out this new brand, we worked to apply it to the newly reimagined IBM Quantum Platform & IBM Quantum Website for a wholistic update to the ecosystem.
Assets created
Updated logotype guidance
Updated color palette + guidance
New typography guidance
New composition guidance
New hero visuals (stills & animations) - collaboration with Field
New photography & animations
New illustration guidance & assets (3 styles) - collaboration with Jamie Jones
Background
The previous brand evolution was heavily inspired by how we photographed our system at the time, IBM Quantum System One, and focused on “pioneering” as the core theme of the identity. This identity primarily utilized dark backgrounds and gradient to create depth, as well as our stylus graphic to guide the eye.
One of the key areas of improvement with this identity was the reliance on dark backgrounds. While applying the brand across web and platform, it was hard to create a 1:1 experience across dark & light. Additionally, our hardware started to evolve toward IBM Quantum System Two: a much lighter, brighter system that needed a brand to support it.
Previous brand (2021)
Design Process
The initial divergent phase of this design work was extensive, gathering a huge amount of inspiration, design explores, and thinking through how the work ties back to quantum. Our explorations resulted in three concepts:
- Continuum: Inspired by the quantum principles of superposition, representing the fluidity of states between 0 & 1 within a qubit.
- Amplification: Inspired by quantum algorithms, and the idea constructive convergence towards final states/answers.
- Dimension: Inspired by the basic idea of moving from a flat, circular bit to a three dimensional sphere with qubits.
We ultimately chose Continuum as our core concept, bolstered by the design principles of feeling Human, Precise, & Disruptive.
Knowing we wanted to create a suite of dynamic hero visuals based on 3 key quantum principles (superposition, interference & entanglement), we partnered with Field to bring this concept to life. These would become our core, general marketing assets used across web & events.
We briefed in the concept of a quantum visual synthesizer: a dynamic tool, ultimately built using TouchDesigner, that would dynamically generate abstract visuals based on the amount of each quantum principle selected via controls. Dialing in the exact way the scientific principles were respresented, as well as the color & light treatments, was really fun to work on with Field.
Final Brand Video:
Superposition:
Entanglement:
Interference:
In addition to our general hero graphic assets, we needed to supplement the brand in more specific and technical ways.
This lead to developing three distinct illustration bucks to represent quantum content:
1. Line: Used for technical drawings, circuit diagrams, etc.
2. Flat: Used primarily in our learning or Qiskit content to speak to community and infuse more humanity
3. Isometric: Used to represent systems, chip diagrams, etc.
While initially a tough challenge to brief in such complicated quantum concepts (like variational algorithm design), Jamie’s initial sketches provided a perfect backdrop to refine content with our quantum stakeholders. From there, we continued to fine tune the color palette until we arrived at our final set of illustrations.
Final illustrations: