Distilling an Identity from a Philosophy
What happens when two companies merge but their stories don’t? You get a brilliant team with an identity crisis. It’s like a mind and a body, working without a central nervous system. Every limb operates differently. Without a shared belief, a story that all the stakeholders can believe in and internalize, you get a breakdown in function. So… how do we find that story? This was the challenge CogitX brought to us in March 2025. They were a new entity with a powerful philosophy of Cartesian dualism, but lacked a unified story to believe in. Without a foundational story, you can’t build an identity. This case study is the story of how we distilled a visual identity from a centuries-old philosophy (and how we’re more confused than ever about said philosophy). Grab a coffee or some snacks, folks, this is a long one. Or just bookmark it to read it at your own pace.
The Beginning
Around the end of March 2025, we got a lead. An agentic AI company with a peculiar problem. Two companies had merged, but they were operating like strangers sharing a house. No unified identity or a shared story.
They reached out to us with a specific request: they first wanted to talk to the designer at B-Moat to judge his taste and vision. It was a litmus test to see whether we could handle what they had in mind. Clearly, CogitX was serious and cared enough about their brand. That excited us.
So, our designer, Sujay, put together a portfolio showcase and a small moodboard articulating our initial vision for their identity. This is how it looked.
The meeting went well. Shiv and Sujay were sold on the prospect of creating a solid and deep visual identity with logo, colors, imagery, patterns. A whole visual world driven by philosophy and story.
But just how distinct of a story can we create, given the barrage of AI companies these days, and yet make it resemble the domain?
Philosophy as Foundation
Our next meeting was the project kickoff call as well as a crash course on philosophy.
The name ‘CogitX’ was derived from Cartesian dualism, a philosophy of mind and body articulated by Rene Descartes. Specifically derived from the phrase Cogito Ergo Sum (I think, therefore I am).
The philosophy ran deep through their history and the way they work. Two merged entities (consulting and tech execution), an AI product (analogous to the mind) driven by a human (the body). The emphasis on thought first and then action. Mind and body. Human and AI. Dualism. You get it.
One of the co-founders had this to say:
"We want to show the human aspect of our brand, the human experience. That's what the 'X' stands for. The human is in the center and the AI can be invisible. Working in the background."
We know that this is the standard marketing speak for AI companies, but don’t roll your eyes yet. They meant it literally. Everything they did was backed by creating a great experience for their customers.
The task was to translate centuries of philosophical discourse into a visual identity.
(*Sujay screams in the distance*)
Notes from the kickoff call
But the challenge wasn't designing a logo or a color palette. It was creating a story that the two merged companies could believe in. A story that represented their merged reality, something they can tell their customers. The visual identity was giving the brand a face and a look.
Calls done. All that was left was to plan this out and get started.
Project Planning
And The First Casualty
We assumed achieving such philosophical depth in our explorations would require 7-8 weeks of experimenting. At best.
Three weeks, they said. April 8th to 30th.
One week for logo development. One week for colors, typography, imagery. One week for patterns and compiling the brand guide.
Now, was it hard to create a story, build a brand world, compile it into a thorough guidebook, in three weeks? Yes. Did we have an option? No.
But in hindsight, we cou… Why don’t we save that for later.
This project felt like trying to condense a semester of philosophy into a coffee break. But CogitX was a go-to-market brand, which meant they needed something functional to first move forward with. The lack of, well, absolutely everything was making functions harder day by day.
So, a comprehensive identity system–logo, colors, imagery, typography, patterns, brand book–in the time it usually takes just to get through discovery and strategy? It was ambitious alright. We planned all the stages and made the relevant tickets on ClickUp, our project management tool. We anticipated feedback cycles and delays and made the tickets meticulously. A few hours later, our board looked robust. The process seemed flawless. It was *chef’s kiss*.
Almost immediately, the process went kaput. With CogitX in the driver’s seat, interactions became ad-hoc. Timelines become blurry. Scope creep set in. Strategy went out the window.
We were moving so fast we skipped a crucial step: the creative brief. There was no single source of truth to anchor our decisions, just a collection of profound, abstract wisdom in our heads that barely moved our pen tool in the proper direction.
Just like CogitX, we only aspire that our customers have a good experience working with us. So that meant we would diligently cater to their requests and calls, nearly all the time.
But in hindsight, we should’ve made a case for extending the timelines and aligning with the client on the scope creep. In hindsight, we should’ve set a lot of things straight, but hindsight is always 20/20.
Let’s proceed.
Moodboarding
The philosophical framework gave us plenty to work with.
Dualism. Thought and action. Human experience at the center. AI working invisibly in the background.
We compiled 3-4 moodboards across logo concepts, color directions, typography references, and imagery styles.
But instead of the typical presentation call where we'd walk through each direction and explain our thinking, they requested an offline review.
When you're translating abstract philosophy into concrete design, the story, thought process connecting them is everything. Without your accompanying narration, images and concepts become Rorschach tests. It’s all up to the client’s interpretation. And dismissal.
Feedback
Their feedback was clear about what they didn't want. But getting clarity on what they did want required multiple follow-up calls and deeper philosophical discussions. All while the clock was ticking fast towards the three week deadline.
Logo Concept Development: Round One
April 11th. Armed with philosophical direction and visual constraints, we dove headfirst into logo sketching. Here's what we were solving for:
Representing Cartesian dualism
Make dualism visually apparent
Create modular design components for multiple applications
Serve as representation for their cogits (agentic AIs)
Avoid brain/neuron imagery (too literal)
The question was… how do you design ‘Cartesian Dualism’?
We had a day and a half to iterate, refine, and present. This was an exploratory phase, and we wanted to weed out the bad concepts by sketching several iterations to finally arrive at good concepts.
Iterating
We did 50 sketches. These early sketches taught us two things:
a large sample space accelerates discovery
chasing sheer numbers without a solid narrative anchor creates noise
Fueled by the ticking clock, we whittled down the 50 sketches to 10-12 concepts, refined them, put them in a mock presentation, and presented them to the founders of CogitX.
And they landed with a thud.
The chosen iterations for the first meeting
Their response was immediate: underwhelming.
None of them captured the philosophical depth they were seeking. The founders remarked that none of them had any intent behind why they were the way they were. As a result, he couldn’t tell a story with these concepts.
The craftsmanship felt rushed.
When timelines compress, craftsmanship suffers of course. But truthfully, we had very little time to put all of this together. We didn’t have the time to give a story to these forms, nor could we explain the intent behind them as we had to focus on getting them presentation-ready. We didn’t sell the ideas well enough.
It was a gut punch. But it was necessary.
In that moment, we weren't just a vendor who missed the mark, we were a creative partner who had to prove again that we could navigate this philosophical terrain.
So we returned to the drawing board. The founders made a strategic decision to pause everything else. Colors, typography, patterns - all of it was pushed aside to focus on cracking the logomark.
Shiv and Sujay decided to go back to the source, to the philosophy, and solve the single most important piece of the puzzle: the brand's core story, embodied in its logo.
Philosophy Breakdown
After that first presentation debacle (dramatic, we know), we were back to square one.
How the heck does one make abstract philosophical concepts visually designable?
I know, turning abstract ideas into design is what a designer does, but let me lament a bit before we do 🙂
- Sujay
We spent an entire day breaking down "thought" and "action" into concrete visual metaphors:
Story briefs
Striking at the heart of the idea
This narrative-first pivot was the turning point of the entire project. Instead of sketching marks, we developed "story briefs". Short, evocative narratives that translated the abstract philosophy of "thought and action" into designable concepts.
We explored ideas like "light cones" representing illumination and "ripples" how a single thought ripples outward to trigger newer thoughts. This exercise gave us a better clearer creative direction. But importantly, it gave CogitX and us a common language. Frameworks that could guide design decisions. It was the key to winning back their confidence and aligning everyone on a single path forward.
Phew.
We converged on a few concepts. For example, our "Echoes of Thought" brief: Thoughts arise from the mind, echo outward in all directions, then converge along a central axis where action crystallizes.
The Chosen Ones
This was step one of solving the visual gap between us and CogitX. Having this direction also meant that their story was finally crystallizing as well. The next step was to explore the chosen concepts in greater depth.
Iteration Marathon
More moodboarding…
With a clear story to tell, we returned to the sketchbooks with renewed purpose. Then came the forge. This was an exhaustive, almost obsessive, search for the right mark. A dozen sketches became over a hundred. We filled canvases, exploring every possible visual metaphor for dualism, thought, and convergence.
Some of our unique marks came from using real photography to ground the abstractions. Lorenz Attractors for their mathematical beauty. Wave interference patterns, road highways and flyovers for their convergence. Light refraction for its dual nature.
100+ sketches. Seventeen final iterations this time. But each one carried weight and intent. Learning from our earlier lapse in communication, we decided to attach story briefs to the chosen designs. It was a good idea in hindsight because the founders were short on time and decided to do an offline review. The story sells the design. Without narrative context, even brilliant execution feels arbitrary.
The wordmark presented its own challenge. Sans serif, clean, minimal–generic descriptors that didn't narrow the field much. We explored typography that could pair with the philosophical weight of the symbol while maintaining enterprise-appropriate functionality.
Round 2 iterations
Round 2 wordmark iterations
The founders of CogitX left their feedback. They could see the thinking behind each direction. The philosophical concepts had visual form.
Three directions survived: Echoes, Convergence, and Ripples.
More exploring, more moodboarding, more iterations, more variations continued…
I was living in a timelapse
- Sujay
By Round 4, we had explored over 100 logo variations.
We were creating variations of variations, exploring micro-adjustments in spacing and proportion, testing legibility at different scales.
This entire phase lasted three weeks and was a deeply collaborative, and intensely iterative, partnership. The process of "finessing" the final mark was a meticulous back-and-forth, refining every curve and line weight in close communication with one of the founders.
The Hybrid Solution (You Thought This was over?!)
After multiple rounds of internal presentations, Sujay got a call from one of the founders.
“We’ve made a decision. We’re going with the Echoes of Thought concept..”
Yes, finally.
“But…”
Uh oh.
“We need a modification.”
They wanted to replace the mind symbol with the star from the Ripples logo.
We tried all permutations and combinations
The reasoning: the mind symbol felt too literal for a tech company. The star better represented AI as the epicenter generating signals.
This created a narrative challenge. Our carefully crafted "Echoes of Thought" story no longer held together. We had to rebuild the philosophical framework around this new hybrid. But we did it anyway.
And that brings us to…
*Angel choir music*
Here’s the adapted story: The star represents the AI epicenter. Thoughts are signals emanating from this central intelligence.
Sometimes the best design solution comes from unexpected combinations. Our job was making the story coherent around the client's intuitive preference.
Color and Type
While Sujay was grinding away on honing the logo, Raksha was developing the color palette. The only constraint CogitX gave was:
“We need the colors to be high contrast for greyscale accessibility, avoid pastels, and embody the thought-action duality.”
That came with its own set of philosophical challenges.
What does dualism look like in color? How do you represent the invisible AI working in the background? What palette positions them as enterprise-grade while maintaining the human-centered philosophy?
- Raksha (probably)
We explored:
Monochromatic schemes emphasizing contrast
Complementary pairs representing opposing forces
Triadic systems balancing multiple brand aspects
However, we faced a similar conundrum with color as we did with the logo. Bridging the visual gap. After multiple reviews, we eventually understood that it wasn’t just about visualizing the colors in CogitX’s domain, it was also about a matter of taste. The references the founders were expecting and the ones we gave - which was deeply rooted in their domain and industry - were different.
They didn’t want to go the typical color route that most AI companies use - Purple hues with diffused flows, neon hues, etc. That was great news to us as we wanted to explore some fresh palettes.
The great part about working with CogitX was that we worked closely with one of the founders, so it was a proper collaboration. Together, we landed on green being the primary color.
A green that was different from any of their competitors, but accessible on both white and black. Further shades of green that weren’t related to success or product states. Everything was contrast checked and accessible.
The moodboard we based the palette on
We came up with a palette that looked pretty good. Green became their primary–representing growth, harmony, and the productive intersection of human and AI intelligence. It had some interesting colors that weren't too tech-like. We passed this on and waited for the CogitX team to respond.
Meanwhile, we also made headway into typography and presented some fonts with character in them.
CogitX’s response came in the form of a call. Unsurprisingly, they had this to say:
Yeah.
We were back to square one.
Without wasting more time, we started exploring new color palettes, again. Now with purple and blue. The colors that they didn’t want to explore in the first place.
They weren’t satisfied with the type options either, so Sujay went about finding more options while Raksha explored newer palettes.
Color and Type: Round 2
Behold the final palette:
Just kidding. It wasn’t.
The palette was just about fixed when we noticed an error: the purple hue we’d chosen had color vibration effects. A shimmer.
When these saturations create optical shimmer, legibility suffers. We had to change the palette to eliminate this, hopefully for the final time. We made a mini brand book of sorts for one of the founders to showcase the progress to the rest of his team.
Though there were so many pivots , it ultimately led to a color palette that CogitX could see working for them, and thoroughly tested to prevent any issues.
But we had one more thing to finalize. The type.
We navigated the classic balance between taste and budget. The client was drawn to premium fonts like Founder's Grotesk, but when faced with the cost, we needed to find an alternative that didn't compromise on character. Our research led us to Rethink Sans, a free Google font that delivered the desired personality without the licensing overhead.
The journey for color and typography mirrored the logo journey. Multiple iterations, understanding feedback to bridge the gap, multiple conceptualizations, and a final hiccup to close out the process.
The deadline was fast approaching, and since we had used most of it for the logo, colors, and type, we had just one week left. And there were more than a few deliverables to tackle.
The Final Leg
With a week to go, we had to work on brand imagery, patterns, presentation templates, and compile everything we’d done into a comprehensive brand book.
We split the tasks between us and plugged away, full steam ahead.
Patterns
Brand book
As the week progressed, we began compiling everything into a brand book. Since CogitX had an internal brand launch, they needed a mini brand book of sorts to show it to the rest of the team, so we focused on delivering that pronto.
The Finish Line
Our engagement concluded by delivering a complete, foundational brand system. We packaged every asset–the finalized logo, a comprehensive brand guidelines book, custom patterns, and presentation templates–to ensure their team was empowered for a smooth, lightweight, and successful launch.
This project was a marathon of creative resilience. We turned a complex philosophy into a living, breathing brand identity.
We navigated ambiguity, faced failure, and through hundreds of hours of relentless experimentation, forged a story that CogtiX could see working for its internal team as well as share it with their customers. Hearing that from them was a win.
The Takeaway
The final identity system successfully translated Cartesian dualism into functional brand architecture. Logo, color, typography, and patterns all reinforced the central philosophy of human-AI collaboration.
But more importantly, this project taught us how to work at the intersection of philosophy and design. How to create story frameworks that enable iteration. How to experiment systematically with unfamiliar techniques.
With this, CogitX challenged us to expand our definition of brand work.
We hope you liked reading this project!
If you want to work with an agency that takes your challenges seriously, we'd love to talk to you.
We’re a curious bunch. Drop us an email at [contact@b-moat.com]. If we’re not the right fit, we’ll try to introduce you to someone who is.
Story and Brandwork - Sujay
Colors and typography - Raksha
Creative Operations - Shiv