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Brand · Working file

Before building the site we explored three complete directions against the brief: confident, precise, warm, human. Each was scored on four criteria from 1 to 10.

Direction A · Savanna Editorial

We build the software. Then we make it think.

05

AI agents

Agents that do the work, then show their working.

Book a callPrimary actionSecondary

Savanna Editorial

Chosen

Ivory

Umber ink

Kodena clay

Type
Fraunces + Hanken Grotesk

Warm, literate and human. The soft serif carries personality at huge sizes, the clay accent is ownable and nobody in the consulting top five uses anything like it. Works on ivory and on ink.

  • Stops a CTO scrolling9
  • Expressive hierarchy9
  • Distinct from competitors9
  • Works light and dark9

Direction B · Swiss Signal

We build the software. Then we make it think.

05

AI agents

Agents that do the work, then show their working.

Book a callPrimary actionSecondary

Swiss Signal

Paper

Black

Signal red

Type
Bricolage Grotesque + IBM Plex Sans

Precise and confident, but cold. Red on white reads close to several large consultancies, and the grotesque feels engineered rather than warm. Strong on rigour, weak on humanity.

  • Stops a CTO scrolling8
  • Expressive hierarchy7
  • Distinct from competitors6
  • Works light and dark8

Direction C · Nocturne Brass

We build the software. Then we make it think.

05

AI agents

Agents that do the work, then show their working.

Book a callPrimary actionSecondary

Nocturne Brass

Forest night

Cream

Brass

Type
Instrument Serif + Work Sans

Elegant and premium, but drifts toward luxury hospitality or private banking. Dark first layouts get heavy over long pages, and the thin serif loses authority on mobile.

  • Stops a CTO scrolling8
  • Expressive hierarchy8
  • Distinct from competitors7
  • Works light and dark6

Decision note

We chose Savanna Editorial. It is the only direction that feels both senior and human, it owns a colour no competitor uses, and the soft serif gives every headline a voice without hype.

Logo concepts

Four concepts, scored.

kodena

Wordmark

Pleasant but generic. Illegible as an icon.

  • Memorable at 16px5
  • One colour9
  • Distinct6
  • Scales7

Bracket K

Clever, but code brackets are a common developer trope.

  • Memorable at 16px7
  • One colour9
  • Distinct5
  • Scales8

Node path K

Too many parts. Collapses into a blur at 16px.

  • Memorable at 16px5
  • One colour7
  • Distinct7
  • Scales6

Negative space K

Strong at small sizes, but the rounded tile feels like an app template.

  • Memorable at 16px8
  • One colour8
  • Distinct6
  • Scales8

The winner, refined three times.

We merged the strongest ideas: the stem and bracket from concept B, the forward path and node from concept C. The lower arm of the K becomes a motion line that lands on a clay node. Software that acts.

Round 1

Thin strokes vanish at 16px. Node too small.

Round 2

Weight fixed. Arm and node collide.

Round 2b

Arm shortened, node separated. Went into round 3 for small-size work.

Round 3: three refinements, tested.

Each candidate rendered at its real size, 16px, 32px and 512px, on ivory and on ink. 16px is where logos fail, so it decides.

R1 · Chosen

Pixel snapped

Heavier strokes on a whole-pixel grid, larger node.

16
32
512 (scaled)
16
32
512 (scaled)

R2

Detached bracket

A sliver of space between stem and bracket.

16
32
512 (scaled)
16
32
512 (scaled)

R3

Rounded path

Round caps and joins for a softer tone.

16
32
512 (scaled)
16
32
512 (scaled)

Decision

R1 wins.

Strokes are six units wide, so at 16px they land on exact three-pixel columns instead of blurring across two. The node is larger and still separate from the arm. R2's gap disappears at 16px; R3's rounded ends go soft and lose the precision of the brand.

Deliverables

kodenaKodena
kodenaKodena
kodena
kodena

180px

64px

32px

16px

Files: favicon.svg, favicon-32.png, favicon-16.png, apple-touch-icon.png, og.png