OAO:

Say hello to OAO, an ed-tech start-up based in Germany, founded by Harvard & MIT grads, HEC & NHH professors, and dynamic entrepreneurs. A synergy platform for personnel growth & business transformation.

OAO is designed for data-driven leaders to increase the velocity of their company’s data while developing and learning new skills. Skills to clarify, apply & measure data-driven opportunities across the business domains.

We created the OAO core brand platform in a lean process, following the founders as they built the platform, tech and content. The initial stage required us to form a simple idea from what is highly sophisticated. With the founders of OAO we coined the term ‘Train & Gain Transformation’. Finding the simple idea for what is radical in executive development and data-driven leadership.

We designed the core identity for a playground of expression and adaptation, iterations and emergent themes as the platform scales.

The founders’ story of how they came together to formulate the strategy for OAO inspired us. They locked themselves away in a cabin high in the mountains of Western Norway. They equipped themselves with only what they needed: high-tech and lightweight. This directed our approach to OAO’s brand: fresh, focused, with poetic simplicity.

OAO looks up to the tools used in moments of outstanding human achievement. Subtle, in the background, stripped of unnecessary details, lightweight, robust, reliable and highly considered – in trained hands… shockingly effective.

The concept explores and interprets ideas of data and transformation through a dynamic identity inspired by tech and control-panel interfaces. Setting out three core qualities:

Simplicity: No added fuss. Led primarily by typography and considered use of graphics and colour.

Playful professionalism: Subtle hints of playfulness that break away from corporate norms.

Core + Playground: A concise visual concept and toolbox at the core, expanded upon at scale.

OAO is just barely in the beginning, and much is to follow. Working with this innovation inspired us greatly, and the value it will bring to its users is something that we wanted to share early.

If you want to know more about our work partnering with tech entrepreneurs and our design, brand tech and advertising processes, get in touch .

(This project is ongoing, detailed case study coming soon.)