Brand · Internal review
Five directions for the mark.
Sketches for review, not finished marks. Switch the mark tweak to see any of them live in the navigation and footer. Each is shown at navigation scale and at favicon scale, because the second is where most marks fail.
Current · logo
Cube in hexagon
Competently drawn and carries recognition, but the shape is shared with hundreds of firms in this sector. Blue fights the palette. Inner cube fills in below 24px.
A · wordmark
Typography only
The reference-class answer. No symbol at all, letterspaced serif with the qualifier in grotesque. Most restrained, hardest to get wrong, and needs a separate device for small sizes.
B · ruled
Rule-anchored
The full name held between two gold hairlines — the annual-report treatment, and the closest of the five to the site's own visual language. Reads as a masthead.
C · plate
Engraved plate
A ruled square holding a single serif initial, plus the wordmark. Gives a genuine small-size device without the circle. My recommendation of the five.
D · seal
Engraved seal
Contrarian in this sector, which is its strength — nobody in digital assets uses certificate language. Risks reading as a crest if overworked. Best kept as a secondary device.
What these are and are not
Sketches drawn in code to hold position and prove scale behaviour. None is a finished mark. Letterforms have not been drawn, spacing has not been optically corrected, and the serif shown is Newsreader standing in for a licensed display face.
The purpose is to answer one question before money is spent: does GDA want a symbol at all? The reference class largely does not. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Lazard, Evercore, Brookfield, and Blackstone are wordmarks. No serious financial institution puts a picture of its industry in its logo, and a cube is a picture of blockchain.
Whichever direction is chosen, the same brief should be given to a brand designer: a primary wordmark, one small-size device that survives 16px, a reversed version for navy, and a horizontal and stacked lockup. That is four assets and roughly two weeks of work.