How I Designed a Data Science Brand

Muralidhar Areti is a data scientist. When he approached me, he discussed his profession and the problems he was facing. At the time, I had no idea what a data scientist was—I had never even heard the term. However, that wasn’t a problem, as Murali would inform me on what it was, and as usual, I always do research on the industry I’m working on. The project lasted eight weeks, and in the first four weeks, we had multiple meetings where Murali discussed the issues he was facing, the process and benefits of data science, and what he did differently. At the time, he already had a website and a few clients.

One of the biggest issues was that he wanted clients to trust him and the work he does. We also had significant discussions on the brand personality and how he wanted to be perceived. Some of the adjectives he used to describe his brand’s personality and desired perception were: subtle, suave gentleman “like James Bond,” high performance, innovative, and my personal favorite, a “get shit done” personality—while still trying to remain appropriate for the data science industry.

After these initial meetings, I created three moodboards/stylescapes to visualize three possible directions based on what Murali described, about what he wanted his brand to be.

He chose the last stylescape. The stylescape chosen was inspired by “Modern Architecture”, something I have a great understanding of. It was also inspired by modern minimalistic graphic design. The stylescape was to evoke a strong sense of geometry and simplicity. Clarity was the main theme, no complication, no clutter.

I then began creating the brand identity. Starting with the logo, I began sketching. Using the stylescape as a reference and knowing the direction we were going for, I attempted to create a modular, geometric, and simplistic logo. Here are a few drafts of some of my earliest ideas.

One of the primary ideas was to create an abstract combination of the letters “M” and “A” or at least an abstract “M”. I took the highlighted sketch and dropped it in illustrator. At first, I thought that would have been the final idea, but I still continued working on ideas in Illustrator, which is when I would have generated the idea for the final logo which would have stemmed from the original highlighted sketch. It’s a good thing I didn’t use the original sketch, since after doing an Intellectual Property search, I would have found out that the original idea was already taken. The last thing I would want is my client getting into legal troubles due to Intellectual Property Infringement.

The final logo was an abstract-shaped lowercase “m.” The idea was not to necessarily read as a literal “m,” but to be abstract for visual interest, simple enough for memorability, clarity, versatility, and scalability. I combined the logo with the typeface “Futura,” which was used for the wordmark “Muralidhar Areti.” I chose this typeface due to its classification as a “Geometric Sans Serif” typeface. Its geometric nature fit well with the geometric nature of the logo.

The color palette evokes that subtle sophistication and simplicity we strived for. I also designed brand collateral, like the statement of work, proposals, and other brand documents Murali uses in his work. I also designed the mockup for the website’s aesthetic.

After the design was completed, I scheduled a call to host the brand presentation meeting online. At first, they were on the fence but after carefully breaking down every decision made and how it aligned with their goals, they were happy with the work done. The next step was to present the brand style guide, which is a guideline document on how to utilize the elements of the brand identity.

It was very interesting to work on such a brand at the time, especially due to having no prior knowledge of what data science was. I’m truly looking forward to working on something similar in the future.