Polkadot Invites Its Community to Vote on the Evolution of Its Brand

October 27th, 2021, the Polkadot network launched the first major decentralized branding initiative supported by the network’s treasury. This groundbreaking project proves how Polkadot’s governance can power decentralized social coordination to execute complex initiatives. Four bounty curators were selected by the community to steward the project—Bette Chen, Co-founder of Acala; Ignasi “Iggy” Albero, Design Lead at Web3 Foundation; Katie Butler, Head of Marketing at PureStake, & Kaye Han, Vice President (VP) of Marketing at Parity Technologies. Along with the bounty implementor, Koto Studio, the Polkadot Brand Update project surfaced deep insights from community research to power the network’s brand strategy. 

“Branding is traditionally a very centralized affair, one company defines everything, and it’s thrown at its community. This paradigm is not particularly compatible with brands of decentralized blockchain networks—the community should be at the starting point, and they should be empowered with flexible brand tools to use, not rigid brand rulebooks to follow,” noted Iggy, who has managed the Polkadot brand internally at Web3 Foundation before this initiative. 

This novel approach to brand development has garnered interest well beyond the blockchain community, as it invites exploration into new ways for communities to work together. In keeping with the philosophy of decentralization that underpins its vision, the Polkadot network enables its community to participate in steering its future identity. From iterative logo designs to the open-source typography used in brand materials, the Polkadot community will soon be able to vote on their preferred direction. 

Rosie Connors, Client Director at Koto studio, addressed this new way of doing things, saying, “The process we’ve been through so far has been unlike any other project we’ve ever worked on, and the Koto team has learned so much about Polkadot’s technology and the world of blockchain along the way. As the brand is ultimately owned by the community, we’re excited to release the two territories we’ve been working on to see which people respond to most.” 

The launch of Polkadot’s on-chain brand vote marks a crucial milestone in the project. This follows months of community research, strategy, and brand development where engineers, infrastructure operators, community members, and stakeholders were interviewed to define the challenges, opportunities, and community’s needs of the Polkadot brand. 

“Being able to speak to so many community members to get a full picture of the Polkadot brand has been really rewarding. I’m equally excited and intrigued to see the direction the community chooses, and to see how the brand evolves in the future.” Louie Zeegen, Strategy Director

DOT token holders can vote on the future of the Polkadot brand here.

Contacts

Ursula O’Kuinghttons

Director of Public Relations at Parity Technologies

About Polkadot:

Polkadot is a next-generation blockchain protocol that connects a network of purpose-built blockchains to allow them to function together effortlessly at scale. Polkadot enables any data to be sent between any type of blockchain, it unlocks a wide range of real-world use cases. By bringing together the best features from multiple specialized blockchains, Polkadot paves the way for new decentralized marketplaces to emerge, offering fairer ways to access services through a variety of apps and providers, enabling Web 3.0 to become a reality.