Decimal brands CCAI, the coalition advocating for responsible AI use

The Brand Identity: The Creators Coalition on Artificial Intelligence (CCAI) was founded by entertainment industry figures, including director Daniel Kwan and actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, to push for ethical and artistic protections wherever AI enters creative work.

Backed by more than 500 actors, artists and executives, the coalition rallies around a single line: “Technology should strengthen human creativity, not undermine it.” New York-based design and technology studio Decimal was brought in to give the organisation its inaugural visual voice, with a brief that asked for an identity carrying institutional weight. “It was important that it did not feel corporate,” explains Raphael Guenassia, Producer at Decimal. “If anything, it had to be grassroots, coming from the ground.

It was clear from the beginning that the identity should be able to flex and work in different types of contexts, from legal documents to merch, be serious but also bold and colourful.” Decimal’s introduction to the project came through a film editor they had worked with on title sequences and graphics for various productions, which gave the studio a route into the entertainment world that the coalition is built on. At the centre of the identity sits a logomark of four converging circles, each holding one of the letters ‘C,’ ‘C,’ ‘A’ and ‘I,’ with a sparkle emerging from their intersection.

Using the sparkle at all is a counterintuitive move for an organisation arguing for restraint in how AI gets deployed, given how saturated the symbol has become across the visual language of AI tech. Decimal’s response was to claim it rather than avoid it. “We learned that the sparkle is not associated with a specific company,” explains Guillermo Brotons, Creative Director at Decimal. “For that reason, we could use it, but it had to be in a way that felt differentiated and, most importantly, not be confused with an AI tech company.

After multiple iterations exploring ways to convey a sense of community through a symbol, including hands, faces, shields, stars, and bridges, we landed on each letter inside a circle, with these forms converging to create an icon from which the sparkle emerged. It was present, but not too obvious.” A spectrum of eight bright shades fans out from the logomark, with any three adjacent hues combining to produce the gradient applications that animate the wider system. Decimal’s instinct on most projects is to restrict the palette, but here the open-endedness is the point. The bigger move lies in how the gradients have been constructed.

Designer & Developer Wenqing Ma frames the strategy as a direct response to the polished house style of the industry. “A big part of the intention was to take a different approach to the gradients that have become shorthand for AI corporations,” she explains. “It’s typically used in a clean, polished way to signal digital magic, but we wanted to bring it back to something more organic and handmade.

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The article discusses a significant initiative in the brand and design industry focused on responsible AI use, which is increasingly relevant and impactful, especially as AI technologies evolve and integrate into creative processes.