Brand Identity for ZuThailand Crypto-native Pop-up City

ZuThailand was a two-month pop-up city for crypto-native participants, designed as a live experiment in community, reputation, and decentralized identity. I worked with Sign to shape the brand and product experience around a simple idea: make participation feel memorable, collectible, and visibly connected across both the physical world and the web app.

The challenge was to create a system that lived in two worlds at once. It needed to feel at home on a mobile and web interface, while also extending naturally into NFC wristbands, event checkpoints, hidden-location markers, and physical activation points throughout the city.

Rather than treating the web app and physical touchpoints as separate deliverables, the project was approached as one connected identity system.

Defining the visual language that held the experience together, including:

a clear type hierarchy for product states and dashboards

a distinct color system that made the experience feel recognizable and cohesive

a motion approach that gave the brand energy without overwhelming usability

visual rules for how the system appeared across app screens, wristband interactions, leaderboards, and success states

application logic for how the identity translated into both digital surfaces and physical objects

The goal was to create something that felt credible and systemized, but still had room for play. The experience needed to resonate with a crypto-native audience while also feeling culturally alive in a festival-like environment.

I led the visual direction for the companion web app, which connected NFC wristbands with unique wallets to a fully on-chain attestation system. The app became the digital home for the brand, giving users a place to register, earn points, track their progress, and understand their reputation inside the city.

The interface included:

onboarding and wallet-linking flows

an attestation dashboard

leaderboard views

category breakdowns

success states and scan feedback

hidden-location states that introduced discovery and surprise

The design had to do more than communicate information. It had to make the experience feel native to the community, with enough clarity to support daily use and enough personality to make it feel like part of the city’s culture.

A major part of the system lived outside the app.

Participants wore NFC wristbands embedded with unique wallets, which they used to interact with the physical environment. Those interactions were reflected back inside the app through verifiable attestations and points. This created a tight loop between physical participation and digital reputation.

The experience included:

Met IRL check-ins, where participants scanned each other’s wristbands to verify in-person meetings

Entered Space check-ins, where users tapped into coworking and shared spaces

Attended Event flows, where hosts could attest attendance

Hidden Location activations, where discovery became part of the journey

a leaderboard that turned participation into a visible social signal

I designed these moments to feel immediate, legible, and rewarding, so the brand could be experienced through action rather than just seen on screen.

I animated the core product states so the interface could respond with motion at the exact moments that mattered most. The animation system was used to reinforce progress, confirm success, and make each interaction feel emotionally satisfying.

That motion layer was important because it helped the brand feel alive. It gave the system rhythm, personality, and a sense of momentum across both the app and the physical experience.

The final system made ZuThailand feel unified across surfaces. The brand was not just a logo or a set of screens. It was a living identity that connected a pop-up city, a crypto-native community, and a product experience into one coherent system.

By combining brand direction, product design, motion, and NFC-enabled interactions, I helped create an experience that felt collectible, social, and culturally specific, while still operating with the clarity and structure of a modern digital product.