The Story
Illumina is the world’s largest genomics company, building and supplying 90% of the hardware globally for genomic research and testing. While they pioneered the industry and have been category leaders for over 20 years—their business was facing threats of new competitors and commoditization, while genomics face growing ethical concerns and public scrutiny.To ensure Illumina's position as the industry leader we built a brand strategy designed to inform both creative and business decisions. Our strategy focused on positive progress and utility, for all.
The Brand Behavior
Their name—Illumina—comes from the word illuminate, and their technology uses light to sequence genetic data. This was our creative starting point, we built our brand out of light — light that can be used as a tool to guide experiences, engage with new audiences, enhance industrial design, deliver new efficiencies and above all bring utility. Below are three examples of light tools and behaviors. Light fields, backlighting & light intensity, and light trails.
Light as a tool for physical material design
A common problem with the brand as it existed before came from visual confusion between the many different consumable products. The light fields enable a great range of differentiation and have brought utility to the product packaging through learned recognition over time.
Launching a new brand starts with building internal advocacy. We designed a brandbook using photochromic ink — ink sensitive to light. As employees expose each page to light the ink becomes visible and they're literally igniting the brand in their hands.
Light as a tool for product design
The brand behaviors play a role in delivering increased utility in the industrial design of the products. Throughout the experience light fields and color are used to build learned understanding and make use of instruments simpler and more efficient.
Experience walkthrough
Summary of how the light behavior assists throughout
Assistant Behaviors
Light as a tool in environment design
From something as simple as illuminating wayfinding signage to using color and light theory to design (and illuminate) productivity rooms the brand behaviors and tools continuously generate optimism and utility.
