Branding / Metagov.org

Metagov.org

Identity and branding work for Metagov's organization website and a variety of its umbrella projects

Context

Metagov is an interdisciplinary research organization comprised of a distributed network of scholars, technologists, organizers, and artists working on a loosely connected network of projects. It embraces decentralized, distributed, collective collaboration.

As the primary product designer within the collective, I first got involved through my Digital Juries research on democratically legitimate online content moderation, but shifted to develop the branding and web identities of a wide portfolio of Metagov's projects.

Impact

Over the years, I've worked on research, design/branding, and organizing initiatives including:

  • Metagov.org, the collective's main site
  • DAOstar, an initiative for a shared standard for DAOs
  • Grant Innovation Lab, a collective advancing greater effectiveness of Web3 grant programs
  • KOI Pond (Knowledge Organization Infrastructure), a graph database that supports relationships between knowledge objects, users, and groups and encourages self-governance
  • Public AI, a coalition working to bring about public AI
  • Advising on Metagov's Journal (in development)
  • Organizing the Metagov seminar, a weekly online seminar on topics in digital governance

Metagov.org

Built in 2023, Metagov.org's designs are inspired by the potential of the early internet as a portal to many worlds. As an interdisciplinary research collective comprised of academics, technologists, artists, community organizers, and more, I wanted to represent Metagov's many initiatives through multiple windows. The design has a chaos mode of multiple draggable windows, as well as a more structured order mode for easier reading. The designs have both a light and dark mode. Metagov.org is a Kirby CMS implementation co-developed with the talented Jack Murray-Brown.

Designing the website as an independent freelancer with a distributed team for an inherently decentralized organization was a loving exercise in chasing cats. Working with community coordinator Cent Hosten and then-executive director Joshua Tan, I categorized and organized the variety of projects from a network of Airtable databases, Google Spreadsheets, Slack channels, and independently hosted sites to put together a coherent community homebase for referencing all projects and people involved with Metagov.

Metagov Swag

As part of the site launch (and coinciding with the organization's visit to Dweb Camp), I also designed a series of sweaters, shirts, and hats for the organization's branding.

Shirt version of the design

Mock-up of two versions for an organization hat

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