The Center for Collective Intelligence needed a brand strategy and design direction that would help the future growth and evolution of a new design methodology and intellectual movement. The brand needed to help people navigate this ‘new world’ by creating a sense of community. They also wanted a brand that could inspire big ideas—ideas that could transform our society through the Supermind Design process.
The Supermind Design methodology is intended to be used by a broad range of people—consultants, managers, thought leaders, and students interested in ideating in a new way. Their new brand needed to engage all these users. The Other Tomorrows team articulated three clear brand attributes to ensure we connected with each audience. Superminds needed to demonstrate Academic Credibility, Connect People with Purpose, and show that the Future is Now. These attributes guided the development of the strategy, messaging, and visual identity.
Because the brand is associated with MIT, it created a unique positioning opportunity. The team needed to balance academic credibility with ingenuity. This challenge required crafting a brand voice and visual identity that balanced showing and speaking with the confidence of MIT’s impressive legacy without aligning ourselves too closely. We also needed to strike the right balance between being aspirational about the potential for this new methodology without stretching so far that messaging became unbelievable.
To build more awareness and help the future growth of this intellectual movement, we created a flexible communication system that could be used by internal teams and easily propagated to the broader design community. We articulated a clear brand strategy and then built the visual system and design for their website, digital presentations, and other tools.
Other Tomorrows also designed the Supermind Design Primer, a print-at-home guide that explains the methodology and breaks down how each of the ‘moves’ work. Designed to be easily digestible, it presents each “move” through an icon system that helps guide new users.
Our brand direction communicates the relationship between machines and people working together in new ways. It demonstrates these “collectives” through dynamic shapes that combine and intersect in different ways to form new compositional relationships. After all, collaboration is not 1-dimensional.
Marisa Bohlmann
Lee Moreau
