A long time ago in a galaxy far far away… Wow, stop! It’s another story…

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud… it’s not that either.. although there seems to be something similar there…

Aha, Beam! That’s right =)

As a part of our series of articles about Beam evolution, let me share how the company visuals evolved. You might have noticed how our website www.beam.mw has been changed during the last 18 months. But now I want to tell you the story of the most recognizable element of our brand — the logo.

When most of our users hear “Beam”, they identify it with a prism. And this is absolutely true. But in the very beginning, Beam had a different vision of what should be the “Beam” brand. So let’s see how it started.

I — Harry Potter times ✨

In the first half of 2018, the word “Mimblewimble” was common enough in the crypto world. The Beam team selected the Mimblewimble protocol as a foundation for our blockchain. The Mimblewimble name naturally pushed the first version of our branding towards the Harry Potter theme.

Here we are, the first version of the logo with the ⚡️lightning ⚡️symbol, a long time before I joined Beam.

However, we create high-tech things, not a kind of magic or witchcraft. Time to level-up, stay tuned.

II — The dark side of the moon times 🌒

What associations come to your mind when you hear the word “Beam”? “Beam” as a construction block? “Beam” like a drink? “Beam” like a ray of light? We chose the last one and the logo came to life. Everyone was excited with the logo inspired by a dispersive prism where all colors of light merge and hide in the white. This is our allegory of the concept of privacy.

… Have you ever seen how a beam of light goes through the prism and splits into 7 different colors? It’s amazing, it’s magic. Yet do you remember we decided to create technology, not magic, so the logo was converted into more techie style: facets, colors, gradients, rays direction…

In the middle of 2018, Beam started to use the prism logo for the first time. Here’s how it looked:

This logo defined the brand colors which are in use till today (well, with slight variations).

III — Good old times 📻

When the desktop wallet launch was approaching, we started to work on a slicker version of our logo. Alexandra, our Design Lead, suggested numerous versions of the logo. There were many discussions and brainstormings about how the Beam logo could look. The discussion’s log would comprise material for another article 😅. Here are some of the suggested ideas which were not accepted: