Red Balloon Security

About

Red Balloon Security (RBS) is a NYC-based, cybersecurity company. Originally spun out of Columbia University’s start-up accelerator, I joined in 2016 when the team was less than fifteen employees. As the company’s first designer, I was tasked with a diverse list of design tasks, from designing print collateral and social media posts, to drafting diagrams for whitepapers and instruction sheets for recruitment challenges. The company’s visual identity at the time was a synthesis of the mischievous art of computer hackers, the do-it-yourself aesthetic of the early internet, and the declassified artifacts of cold war era spycraft and cryptography. Whereas other companies aim to emphasize approachability, clarity, and ease of use, there was an intentional effort to obfuscate, amuse, and challenge. RBS demanded ingenuity and determination from those interested in learning about the company.

In 2018 RBS decided that the company needed to rework its visual identity and consolidate its disparate themes core to the company’s ethos. The CEO, business development team, junior design team and I worked closely to determine the values of the company, pinpoint target audiences, and develop the experience that RBS wanted to convey. Together we developed a suite of brand assets that streamlined core themes, increased the level of professionalism, and refined the brand’s visual language, yet honored the mischievous and cryptic foundation of RBS’s brand identity. These included a sharp and striking new brandmark, font rules, and spectrum of colors to represent the spectrum of embedded devices protected by RBS’s technology. .