How&How creates new hologram-inspired identity for verification platform Veriff

Studio How&How has crafted the brand identity, strategy and website for ID verification platform Veriff, using “extremely detailed” guilloche patterns usually found on banks notes and passports.

Veriff uses AI to scan thousands of different data points on a user’s face to ensure that everyone is who they say they are online. Its goal is to streamline the verification process and bring down the cost of digital ID verification so that it can be used beyond fintech applications, in internet communities such as gaming and social media.

The privately owned start-up is now valued at over $1billion and according to How&How founder and creative director Cat How, the brand needed to “match that status” with a refreshed identity, which better aligned with its accessibility goals.

To replace Veriff’s previously “disunited” and “truncated” system, How says that the studio introduced a unique “concentric cycle” system, which takes cues from guilloche patterns found on bank notes, passports and driving licences. She adds that guilloche designs are made up of “interwoven patterns which make them very difficult to fake”.

Animated colour changes on the website are also informed by ID documentation, as they seek to mimic how the colours of a hologram would change “when rolled against a UV light”, How explains. She says that the use of “dramatic” contrasts of “light and dark” in the colour palette aim to depict the good and bad sides of the internet — being verified and unverified.

Using this kind of “rich source material” for inspiration was part of the studio’s strategy to distinguish Veriff as “a platform people can trust”, says How. Unlike other companies in the sector which often use blue as a “trusted colour”, Veriff uses green as a central colour, which helps to set it apart, according to How.

The asymmetrical logo also seeks to make Veriff “more memorable”, says How, and can be interpreted as “a V, a tick, or a book or door opening”. For the wordmark, the client requested to keep it “similar to the sans font that they already had”, How adds. The studio chose to implement National 2 Condensed – a sans serif typeface – designed by Kris Sowersby and published through Klim Type Foundry for the headline font and Pangram Sans by Pangram Foundry as the secondary font.

How&How also designed Veriff’s “highly functional” 40 module website, says How. She adds that, as well as the hologram patterns, the studio created bespoke illustrations for the site to “make the concept more accessible”. Illustrations were crafted for each of the six sectors that Veriff works across: fintech, healthcare, metaverse, gaming, education, and crypto.

How explains that as Veriff is a “B2B2C” – which means it is both business and consumer facing – the studio had to consider different layers of accessibility. While the website was designed for buyers, people of all ages and technical capabilities will interact with the brand, whether that’s through “Facebook, Tinder, or Roadblocks”, says How.

Veriff’s new identity and strategy has now rolled out across its website and social media.