HelloCrypto
HelloCrypto
Crypto Explained.
Bit by Bit.
SERVICES
Brand Strategy / Creative Direction / Web Design / Content Marketing / E-Commerce
2020—Present
COLLABORATORS
NERDER / Craig Bedard / Cam Prockiw / Alan Lum / Mark Gervais / Lincoln Agnew / Simon Spichak
As a Founding Partner and Creative Director for HelloCrypto.com, I led our brand strategy,
visual identity, and site design. I also managed an international team of writers and designers to research, publish and update
content.
The Story of HelloCrypto
HelloCrypto goes all the way back to the summer of 2018.
Craig and I were talking about the growing number of people who were reaching out to with basic questions about crypto and Bitcoin.
We kept answering the same questions over and over.
For example:
Where do you buy it?
Is it safe?
Do I need to buy a whole Bitcoin?
And so on…
These were people who knew and trusted us: family, friends, people we’d worked with back in the CriticalMass days. The number of new callers seemed go up along with the rising price of $BTC.
We envisioned a way to share knowledge and introduce crypto to as many people as possible. I wanted to help my Dad understand how revolutionary and powerful this new kind of money would turn out to be.
Craig has a background in SEO and I've worked as a creative director and designer since the late 90s. His coding agency Nerder had developers ready to build our site and implement our content marketing strategy.
I had a few talented people who could help turn our creative vision into a brand.
Once we convinced Cam to join, our idea officially came to life. He elevated our game plan and took everything to the next level by introducing business goals, analytics and accountability.
We won the url hellocrypto.com (via GoDaddy auction) and started implementing brand and content strategies.
This is a look at how it all came together.
1
Brand Strategy, Naming, Logo Design
Cryptocurrency, blockchain technology and Web3.0 can be confusing and intimidating.
We decided to name it "HelloCrypto" because it sounds friendly and approachable
— it sounds helpful.
Also, it’s super easy to remember and not very hard to spell.
The basis of our logo is a block that looks like it's covered in scaffolding or being built. It's
flexible enough to use for editorial illustration and an obvious visual connection to blockchain
technology.
Green is the main color because it speaks to being new, growth and profitability.
We chose fonts like Euclid Mono and Suisse Int'l from the excellent Swiss Typefaces library.
I hired Alan Lum to help design the HelloCrypto logo,
then
had Mark Gervais create this animated version.
Revealing the individual letters is intended to feel a bit like a mystery being solved (or a code being
broken).
Bit by bit.
🤓
2
Creative Direction, Web Design
Learn How to Stop Worrying and Love the Blockchain. HelloCrypto.com
3
Content Marketing
Crypto is a highly competitive topic, which naturally makes SEO and content
marketing challenging.
However, our organic search traffic and keyword results show a steady increase over time (via Ahrefs)
and this validates that we're getting a few things right.
Hopefully this is an indication of where things are headed.
We created HelloCrypto to stand out from the backdrop of projects and people
trying to shill the next NFT / meme / ponzi or combination.
We want to differentiate ourselves from all the channels using a variation of the same unoriginal
thumbnail: a shocked looking guy in the bottom right corner pointing up at a coin symbol and probably a
rocket emoji.
Instead our visual direction was inspired by mid 90s skateboard culture, WIRED Mag, TED Talks ...
perhaps a bit of NYT Wirecutter.
Picture: Seth Godin x Mark Gonxales.
👽 👹 🤖
More Work
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Exceptional clients get exceptional work.
Milton Glaser, Milton Glaser
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(1929 - 2020)
New problems always need creative and technical solutions.
Web3.0 is only beginning to introduce new digital products, build communities, create experiences
and redefine brands.