Trading
Technology Metals Market
Designing a future-focused brand and trading portal for the tech metal market
The Technology Metals Market (TM2) is a primary market issuing and trading platform for technology metals connecting institutional investors, industrial hedgers, physical market and proprietary traders with metals issuers — miners, refiners, recyclers and mints.
Whilst the trading of common metals is widely-known, TM2 identified a gap in the industry for the open trading of rare tech metals such as beryllium and vanadium, used in mobile phones, satellites and other emerging technologies. Since most of these metals have few or no direct investment options, yet are key to quantum technological evolution, TM2 have made history by digitising a market expected to see the largest supply/demand tension over the next decade.
The brief
We were asked to design a brand, website and customer portal that was reflective of the future-focused nature of the metals being traded and the Blockchain technology making it all happen.
Brand identity
Key to our design was drawing upon the dynamic forms found within geology and countering them with the inherent structure of the periodic table of elements. The fluid contour and topography lines contrast against the elemental grid to create a striking combination.
The grid structure is also used throughout to house various components and is used abstractly to represent the fluctuations in graphs often seen on the trading floor.
From brand to site
The abstract elements taken from the periodic grid as well as the more fluid geological forms were applied to the website layout, on a backdrop of nature-focused landscape photography.
The result was a sleek marketing site fit for this NASDAQ-backed company going “21st century and beyond”.
Trading portal
TM2’s key offering is a cutting-edge trading portal that allows a niche market to play out in users’ hands - all powered by Blockchain technology. This functional side of the brief saw the team designing seamless user experiences and interfaces around setting up an account, onboarding, completing a transaction and maintaining their digital wallet.
The team worked very closely and collaboratively in sprints with TM2’s internal teams and other business owners and stakeholders across Russia, Iceland and the UK.
Other branding applications
The team created presentation templates and offline collateral of the brand in action. Despite the largely monotone colour palette, the more playful geometric forms bring it to life and realise the fresh concept. The branding elements work just as well for offline brand merchandise as they do for digital applications. Relevant products were designed including a lanyard, hard hat and notebook.
