Office of Overview rebrands Odin, the Shopify for venture capital

The Brand Identity: Billions of dollars flow into start-ups every year in the name of progress, yet much of venture capital ends up optimised for marginal convenience instead of the futures it claims to chase. As the quote goes: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” Odin sets itself against that drift. The platform lets anyone launch and run a private investment firm from their phone, handling the legal structuring, investor onboarding, payments, reporting and exits that sit behind an SPV or fund.

Think Shopify for venture capital, with more than $500m in assets already administered for over 200 emerging managers and deal-by-deal investors. The rebrand by Office of Overview emerged from a single line. When Odin’s founder Paddy Ryan described the company, he reached past the clichéd language of fintech, describing Odin as a “progress machine shaping how the future gets built through capital, institutions and the people who influence them.” For the London-based design company, that quote was the brief. A progress machine could not behave like financial technology built to offend nobody.

Instead, they designed for the founders building difficult futures, the investors willing to back strange convictions before consensus arrives, and the people irrational enough to believe they can reshape society. At the centre of the rebrand is the eye-like logomark that feels like an engineered shape with the precision of a machined component. “The myth of Odin was that he sacrificed his eye to gain eternal knowledge,” explains Design Director Avi Bamra, “so it works in both present and historical contexts.” The eye carries the belief and the perspective of people with the vision to change the world, drawn as a piece of hardware.

It even appears as a machined carabiner, the lozenge of the eye cast in steel. Running underneath every decision is a tension the studio frames as romance and rigour, and the typography is where that became a working method rather than just a mood. Two typefaces appear throughout the system. Thermochrome from Mass Driver and Die Grotesk from Klim Type Foundry.

“Thermochrome is a dot matrix font that nods to the playful future-focused part of the identity,” Bamra tells us, “and Die Grotesk is the more functional dance partner that helps ground the personality.” The two are used in headlines interchangeably, with punchier, more expressive copy leaning towards Thermochrome and more opinionated, functional lines towards Die Grotesk. Layouts borrow from the visual language of digital UI, both old and new. Screen-like portals act as windows into what Bamra calls “the many worlds of progression,” emulating the feeling of looking through a hypothetical dashboard.

The studio kept the core steady with a simple square grid and clean centre-aligned type as a counterweight to the expressive, playful elements. Colour plays the same game of restraint and energy. The core palette is grounded so that the progress worlds can carry the colour. “We were also cognisant of both the bland monotone space of conventional finance brands, as well as the vibrant neon colour-clad world of crypto,” he says.

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The rebranding of Odin represents a significant shift in the venture capital landscape, making it highly impactful, while its emphasis on a visionary identity offers a novel approach that is relevant to brand strategy professionals.