FormaDAO brand by ThisisGrey

Large rock with the words 'Forma Dao' written in white graffiti-style lettering on its surface.

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FormaDAO (2024) — A group of friends and investors decided to create the investment vehicle that should exist: One that understood investment as art built by a tight gang of creatives. I helped them crystallise their vision into a brand that could become the Odd Future of VCs.

For this project I collaborated with my friend Riccardo Fedrigo and I could not have asked for anyone better. I focused mostly on Creative Direction while Riccardo focused on design and we have continued collaborating together.

A montage of nine images including ancient cave paintings, a large ground geoglyph, two people painting intricate body art, a man kneeling outdoors with a crowd in the background, a person meditating indoors, a group pulling ropes around a tall wooden structure in a desert, a black and white landscape photo, the Whole Earth Catalog Fall 1970 cover, and a spiral pattern drawn in sand.

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We followed an intense collaborative process that allowed us to understand that the Forma team wanted to create the anti VC fund. One focused on intuition and creative energy, one against the industrialised venture capital machine, one on a mission to reclaim investing as art form.

To find the spirit of the new, we went back to the roots of Silicon Valley and the hippies who dreamt of a machines of loving grace: Early Burning Man, Richard Brautigan, Ayahuasca with mathematicians, hunting bears with bow and arrow, initiation rituals, Whole Earth Catalog, Cybernetics, and petroglyphs.

Twelve dark rocks featuring white prehistoric-style petroglyphs including a human figure, hand, animal, spiral, eye, and abstract symbols.

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Pictogram collection

Billboard showing a black bull and a hooded figure in a cloak with text 'MYSTICAL CRYPTO INVESTMENT TACTICS' in a barren landscape.

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FormaDAO launch website at formadao.xyz

Smartphone displaying an Instagram post of a face with dramatic orange eyeshadow and closed eyes in a black background, titled GOLFTRIP/VEGYN with details about a one-time NFT drop.

We are huge fans and believers in the power of AI art and we created lots of mystic imagery to evoque the magic of the creative process. Entering the dark cave of infinite potential, wandering through the desert, focusing the mind and finding the idea that was there all along.

Imagery inspired by the creative journey: The cave of infinite potential, focusing the mind, wandering through the desert, and finding the right idea.

We experimented with generative art for this project because it gave us the speed and flexibility we needed but also because the weird and the dreamy output of 2024 AI fit the brand spirit perfectly. Our experiment worked out great, and we learnt a lot we are going to take to coming projects.

Magazine cover featuring a young person with closed eyes wearing a patterned jacket and mustard sweater, lying on grass with white flowers.

Urban billboard with a red background displaying a poetic text about a cybernetic meadow where mammals and computers live in harmonious programming.

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Richard Brautigan and Machines of Loving Grace

As an extra, here are some tests for an alternative route that didn't fit with the strategy but looked really good and super fun to play with.

Five posters: a crying doll face with text 'Entropic poetic systems'; blue abstract shapes with text 'Emergent whispers of new from the many'; a man looking at a rainbow of light with 'Forma Existential Investing'; two hands exchanging a bright star with 'Forma Spiritual Money Flux'; a man walking on clouds under stars and a rainbow with 'Forma Create Invest'.

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