Branding the fast-moving AI marketplace has become as fascinating to observe as the products themselves. Keeping pace is Twelve Labs, an AI video tool, which has revealed a new identity by Pentagram that appropriately mirrors the movement and speed of the sector.
In reality, the motion-ready logo at the heart of the identity – a symbol of a person riding on horseback rendered IBM-style – was designed to evoke the “forward energy of the company itself”, according to the agency.
The motif is also a reference to Eadweard Muybridge, the 19th century pioneer of motion studies and animation techniques, who famously demonstrated his technological experiments with a scene of galloping horse. This cue also cropped up briefly in OpenAI’s Super Bowl ad promoting ChatGPT back in February.
In addition, the symbol inspired other parts of the brand such as the naming of the company’s AI models, which include Pegasus and Marengo (Napoleon Bonaparte’s horse).
The rounded bars of the logo recur in the redesigned UI, which features “lozenge-shaped” components, and in the subtly rounded corners of the primary typeface, Milling by 205TF. There’s also a softness in the colour gradients, and in the irregular hexagonal framing devices and patterns, whose shape resembles blurred video frames seen from an isometric perspective.
The verbal identity was developed to feel confident enough to hold authority among AI practitioners, business partners, and users, without descending into self-aggrandising territory. The team also wanted to avoid the typically overwrought language adopted by a lot of tech companies today. “This is not a brand trying to be loud or disruptive for the sake of it,” according to Pentagram.
The project was led by Pentagram Partners Jody Hudson-Powell and Luke Powell, who have been exploring the technology since their university days and working on branding projects in this space as far back as 2017.
“Luke and I are really interested in the technology story and the role it plays in the world,” Hudson-Powell told us in 2023, “so when we have new projects come in we try and go as deep as we can and really understand what’s going on, why it’s unique, why it’s interesting, and then help bring that story to life.”
pentagram.com