Canadian biotech company Scimar is on a mission to eradicate type 2 diabetes worldwide. They are in the final sprint to bring a life-changing product based on a hormone called hepatalin to market, and wanted to create a branded media channel to collect a wide variety of content: exclusive personal interviews, outreach initiatives, clinical trial progress, product info, highlight healthcare access issues, and more.

Manitoba Moonshot is a front-row seat to watching this journey and witnessing a small Canadian company push boundaries, disrupt the status quo, and challenge the way things have been done for decades. The brief was to create a brand that felt approachable, symbolic of Manitoba, and not medical or scientific in look & feel.

The brand identity I developed links the natural beauty of the physical location where Scimar Began—Dauphin, Manitoba, population 8,457 (2016)—to a brighter, diabetes-free future for the communities that live there and beyond. As is appropriate for a brand with this audacious goal, the graphics are geometric and contemporary, and the typography is meaningful and bold:

• The customized logotype intentionally shows a proud, uppercase Manitoba emerging from behind an invisible horizon as a nod to Dauphin being a small, obscure place you’ve likely never heard of (though most people outside of Canada have never heard of Manitoba either, even though it’s almost as large as Texas.)

• The moonshot idea is suggested through the stars and skyward perspective of the northern lights in the logo.

A style guide was developed to advise on use of brand assets that was consistent, playful, and highly adaptable (multiple versions of the logo were created for different colour ways, different compositions, and with different scaled details). To support the logo and typography, various graphics were created to round out the brand; stars, line patterns, and multiple colour gradients offered endless possibilities for ways Manitoba Moonshot could manifest on and offline.

RESULTS: The youtube channel has over 12K subscribers and continues to post engaging content.

Though I didn’t create this website, I encourage you to learn more about the incredible work Scimar is doing at manitobamoonshot.ca.