Why did True Arrow build Cambrium’s identity out of molecular blocks?

The Brand Identity: Cambrium engineers materials that don’t exist in nature, building new molecules from scratch to reach performance no existing material can deliver – from microcellular foams for midsoles to bioidentical peptides for skincare. For the rebrand, Berlin-based studio True Arrow worked on a single strategic idea, ‘Alive with Possibility.’ “The real difference between Cambrium and comparable companies is that they’ve built a way to scale the new materials they create, where other competitors’ innovations tend to get stuck in the lab,” Executive Creative Director Tim Williams explains.

The brief was to make something this advanced feel both credible and alive, curious enough to invite and precise enough to convince. The identity takes its concept from the science itself. Amino-acid chains are nature’s building blocks, so True Arrow made building blocks the foundation of the visual language – modular forms that combine and reconfigure across Cambrium’s range of technologies. Molecules are usually drawn as “a sea of sticks and balls,” as Williams puts it, so the team looked for something else.

In a session with Cambrium’s scientists, they sketched icons for each core technology – peptides, polymers and enzymes – each built from blocks, able to sit flat or render in 3D, with new ones addable without breaking the system. Flat colour does the work of the lab, clean and exact; three-dimensional texture does the work of the material, all weight and surface. The logo is embossed, moulded and surface-etched into the materials themselves, so the brand and the substance become inseparable. The textures were modelled to match the things Cambrium makes, from foams to coatings, using a mix of 3D design and AI. The mark sits in uppercase.

“Designing it in caps gave it the authority to reflect their mission of bringing the next generation of materials into the world,” Williams notes, “but it was also a practical decision – the straight forms and fluid curves make it scalable, right down to very small sizes.” True Arrow explored expressive typefaces before making precision the focus, landing on CoType Foundry’s Aeonik – the Faux Mono cut in particular, whose solid block serifs lock into the graphic language and look engineered.

“That precision in the type gave us more freedom with the tone of voice,” Williams reveals; with the type doing the grounding, the writing can turn poetic. The imagery pushes in the other direction, close enough to feel the grain and the stretch. Williams describes the tight crops as getting “as close as possible to where the performance actually happens.” On the website, the system moves, walking the visitor from molecule to material. The animation hints at how a material behaves, such as the squash of a foam or the water-repellent run-off of a coating.

“Motion gave us the ability to make everything feel alive,” Williams adds, and a coded, continuous cycle of molecules turns over on the page without ever ending – the making of new materials, looped. True Arrow Cambrium Design True Arrow True Arrow Typography Aeonik by CoType Foundry Aeonik by CoType Foundry Share

The article discusses a significant rebranding effort for Cambrium, which highlights innovative design strategies that are relevant to brand strategy professionals, particularly in the context of technology and identity creation.