From seed to AcornCMO
My client Steven, a Frictional CMO based in San Francisco, and I had already been collaborating for a while when he reached out with his new project. He is a thoughtful leader, and working with him has been a great experience. So when he trusted me with branding his new company, I was happy to take it on to create something that’s meaningful and lasting.
B2B / SaaS
UI design
Creative & Art Direction
Brand identity development
Process
Because we both operate within the B2B startup ecosystem, the real challenge was to create an identity that matched his vision, his personality, philosophy, and where he wants to go with this.
Steven brings his 15+ years of GTM expertise to early-stage B2B startups to drive scalable growth. As both of us are familiar with the startup ecosystem, our main focus became building a distinct identity that would both represent the business’s core values and build on Steven’s vision, personality, and philosophy.
Theme
To understand his tone and approach better, I developed three distinct directions exploring the theme “lifecycle of an oak tree” from different perspectives. The theme, inspired by the name AcornCMO, presents itself as a strong metaphor based on the transition of a small acorn into a mighty oak tree, and fully reflects the company’s main promise of “growth.”
Hence, the journey of the acorn becomes a narrative anchor that tells the story of Steven’s clients’ journey of growth from an early-stage startup to a unicorn.
The acorn metaphor is also the visual anchor in our storytelling. From the color palette inspired by stages of growth, typography inspired by oak trees' sturdy yet dynamic nature, to the graphic language borrowing elements from nature, AcornCMO’s visual identity becomes a versatile system to communicate complex business concepts through an organic and approachable lens.
Ultimately, my goal was to help Steven position AcornCMO as a brand of distinct character in the crowded startup ecosystem that mostly relies on surface-level branding and lacks organic expression.
AcornCMO brand guide
I’m proud of how AcornCMO turned out, and the story of transformation, growth, and maturity that we were able to tell through its visual identity. The same story Steven brings to every client partnership.
