When we launched the first SEA website at the start of 2021, we had one clear goal. We needed to get the message out as loud and clear as possible — we are killing our oceans, and if they die, we die. The level of urgency we felt at that time has not diminished — with every fluffed climate summit, with every broken corporate promise, and with every day that the “point of no return” slips behind us into history, the need to act grows more serious.
We bootstrapped the project in those early days — we made everything ourselves, wore all the hats, kept all the plates spinning. We needed a logo, branding, and a website to support our message — our CEO James designed and built them, and they’ve served us over the last year to push the core message of the project forward.
But as we all know — sometimes you build a perfectly good bipedal humanoid droid, program it for etiquette and protocol, then things get complicated and you need it to understand the binary language of moisture vaporators, then it also needs to speak Bocce… before you know it the droid is whining constantly about frozen joints, and it’s time to start again from scratch (wtf are you talking about? ed).
Our project has grown exponentially over the last twelve months — we launched SEAstarter, we were awarded the Algorand Foundation grant, we’ve developed our groundbreaking ideas for the SEA Nexus, enlarged our partner network, exhibited at ocean and environmental tech conferences around the world, and our team has grown from two people to almost twenty. It’s time to wave bye-bye to the DIY, and lay down a new foundation for SEA’s public image to build upon.
That’s why we’re insanely excited to announce the launch of our new website and branding! We’ve been working on a new look for SEA for the last few months, and we’re hitting the button tomorrow!
We started with design proposals from six different agencies, gradually refining their ideas until we had one favourite look and feel. We wanted to find an image for SEA that expressed our ambitions for the project — a brand that communicates science, data and technology, but also nurturing, sustainability, ecosystems, oceans and the environment. Although a few of the proposals incorporated our beloved wave 🌊, in the end, we decided to move away from that image towards the more abstract form of a water droplet. It’s simple, bold and clear, and we feel it perfectly embodies the ethos of the SEA project — each of us can contribute to the protection and repair of our planet, each of us can be involved, can make a difference. An ocean is made up of drops of water — without those drops, the sea doesn’t exist.
With the new branding for SEA in place, the new website was the next goal. The new site was designed and built by our sister company, the Stacking Crew — it’s the first major project we’ve carried out since we formed the company, and it’s the perfect showcase for the breadth of skills and depth of talent held in the team. Built in React, the site is designed to be light, fast, rich and impactful on any device.
More importantly, the structure and navigation of the new site make finding the information you want easy, whether you’re looking for details about the SEA Nexus, the VSEA token, our BSC projects or anything else. A unified project roadmap, key information on the $SEA and $VSEA tokens, and details on the development of the Nexus are all a single click away. An expanded FAQ has everything you need to know, and our new learning library dives deep into the key elements of our project.
There’s more to come — we were keen to get this new website and branding out, and so we’ve launched with the most basic possible useable version of the site, bringing you the info you need. But over the coming weeks, you can expect to see a lot of development — cool animated elements, interactive data maps and much more.
One line from the original design brief has stuck in my mind since we first sent it out — “the logo should look great as a 30px icon on a website, but equally good two metres high on the side of a research vessel”. We think the new look for SEA fits that goal. So, tomorrow we swing that champagne bottle onto the bow of the new website, and here’s to doing it for real on that SEA-branded research ship in the not-too-distant future!
Join us at 16:00 UTC this Friday (11th March) for a special SEAstream with the SEA team — we’ll be talking through our new branding and website, and answering your questions. Tune in to our Twitch channel, and ask you questions in advance on our Twitter.
