Branding for regulated industries has always interested me. The tension between scientific credibility and human emotion is fertile ground.
This ongoing study looks at historical pharma packaging, clinical trial materials, and research institute identities, then extracts principles that work in digital product design:
- Controlled color systems with toxic/safe polarity
- Typography that prioritizes legibility under stress
- Iconography derived from actual laboratory glassware and molecular diagrams
- Motion that feels measured rather than playful
I applied the resulting system to three fictional biotech startups. The work sits somewhere between pure research and speculative design. Several clients later asked for 'something that feels like that lab project' — which is the best feedback an experiment can get.