The Polkadot Brand Is Evolving, Community Decides Its Future

The Polkadot network is launching its first major decentralized branding initiative supported by the platform’s treasury. This trailblazing project shows just how capable Polkadot’s governance is in decentralizing social coordination in order to run complex initiatives.

In another act of decentral authority, the community chose four bounty curators to spearhead the project. Specifically, this includes the Co-Founder of Acala — Bette Chan, and Head of Marketing at PureStake — Katie Butler. In addition, the Design Lead at Web3 Foundation — Ignasi ‘Iggy’ Albero, and VP of Marketing at Parity Technologies — Kaye Han, will join them.

Furthermore, they will be accompanied by the bounty implementor — Koto Studio. Thus, with this team in place, the Polkadot Brand Update project is ready. Thereby, to power the network’s brand strategy, the team will consult deep insights from community research.

In particular, Iggy shares their thoughts on managing the Polkadot brand internally at Web3 Foundation before this initiative:

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

In fact, this unique approach towards brand development has caught the interest of those well beyond the blockchain community. This is because the process invites exploration into new ways for communities to work and succeed together.

Therefore, by keeping with the philosophy of decentralization which is essential to Polkadot’s vision, the platform allows its community to partake in steering its future identity. Likewise, the Polkadot community can soon vote in their preferred direction. This could be over an iterative logo design or over the open-source typography used in brand materials.

Meanwhile, the Client Director at Koto studio — Rosie Connors, shares her thoughts about this new way of doing things. To specify, she says that the process they’ve been using so far has been unlike any other project they’ve ever worked on before.

Hence, the Koto team learned a lot about Polkadot’s technology as well as about the world of blockchain. Finally, she says that since the brand belongs to the community, the team is excited to release the two territories they’ve been working on, hoping to see which they will respond to most.

All in all, this on-chain brand vote is a crucial milestone for Polkadot. Certainly, the work that went into reaching this milestone is truly incredible. In detail, it involved months of community research, strategy, and brand development where engineers, community members, infrastructure operators, and stakeholders were interviewed to define the opportunities, challenges, and community’s needs when it came to the Polkadot brand.

Lastly,  Strategy Director — Louie Zeegen, says that it has been most rewarding to see so many community members speak together to paint a picture of the upcoming Polkadot brand. Additionally, he says that he is equally full of intrigue and excitement to see the direction the community will choose. Above all, this will decide how the brand will evolve in the future.

P.S – DOT token holders can place their votes on the future of Polkadot’s brand here.