PELInvestment firm · Rebrand
Pelagos Ventures
Calm water, bold founders.
- Sector
- Early-stage investment and advisory, San Diego
- Project
- Rebrand
- Built on
- Figma, Webflow
The challenge
An investment firm named for the open sea, behind a busy badge that fell apart on a phone.
The brief
A mark as decisive as the partners, and a site that feels calm and focused.
Pelagos Ventures is a San Diego firm that invests in and advises early-stage founders. It wanted a brand as decisive as its partners, and a website that feels calm and focused.
01 · Project overview
Named for the open sea.
Pelagos Ventures backs founders as investor, board member and adviser.
Founded in San Diego in 2016 by two partners, it also runs a social-ventures arm. Pelagos is Greek for the open sea. In 2023 the firm asked us for discovery, an identity, messaging and a website: in the partners’ word, a billboard.
02 · The opportunity
Too many ideas in one badge.
The old mark was a hexagon badge holding mountains and an anchor.
Our design review called it busy and complicated, and it did not work on a phone. The firm’s story needed simplifying too: founders who have made the mistakes so others don’t have to, not private equity. Discovery became a Brandscript: Connect, Partner, Impact.
03 · Visual identity
One peak, many readings.
We reduced the badge to a single curved peak.
Two straight sides meet over a deep concave sweep, so it reads as a sail, a crest, a bow and a beam of light. It holds at favicon size. The palette came from the founders: navies of the abyss, ocean and sea, sea-salt white, one pelagic blue.
04 · The website
Calm and focused.
We wrote the homepage as a story, from the partners’ purpose to how they work.
We designed it in Figma with ripples and shifting color, then simplified it after the partners’ review. A calmer single page launched on Webflow in December 2023. It opens on glowing jellyfish in deep blue water.
05
A story for founders.
Discovery with the partners became the story every page tells: founders who have made the mistakes so others don’t have to.
A guide, not private equity.
06 · The brand in use
Ready to make waves.
The identity went to work before the site did.
Business cards were ordered on the new identity in August 2023, and LinkedIn assets followed. The firm’s own lines, Navigate the plunge into entrepreneurship and Ready to make waves?, carry the same calm confidence. In 2024 we updated the site’s content.
What changed.
One curved peak in place of a crowded badge, and a calm single-page site.
What we did
- Discovery and stakeholder interviews
- Brandscript and positioning
- Messaging
- Logo and mark
- Color palette
- Typography
- Identity applications
- Homepage copy
- UX and interface design
- Scroll animation design
- Webflow build
- Launch
- Business cards
- LinkedIn assets
- Content updates
Running a business like Pelagos Ventures?
Tell us where you are and where you want to go. It starts with a conversation, then your Flight Plan in writing.
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