30/07/2026
The bravest move an AI company can make right now? Stop trying to look like tech.
That's one of the choices we made with Collage AI. But it started somewhere deeper.
They're building an AI platform for higher education. The whole promise is giving educators more time with students, not less. Academia at the center. Supporting it, not replacing it.
And they were about to put it in front of educators at some of the most respected institutions in the country.
They needed a brand that could carry that. Bold enough to signal real innovation, warm enough to feel built for teachers, not instead of them.
So in a 10-day Brand Sprint, we made three deliberate choices.
→ We built the strategy around one conviction.
AI as an extension of faculty, not a replacement for them. If the point is to give teachers their time back, the brand had to say so first.
→ We made pedagogy the differentiator.
In a category crowded with chatbots dressed up as learning tools, being rooted in how people teach is the boldest position available. Depth, not hype.
→ We chose not to look like AI.
Almost every product in the category reaches for the same purple, the same cold futuristic edge. The braver move was to stand apart.
So we built on warm paper.
The color of thought, not circuitry.
A serif typeface, not another geometric tech logo.
Human faces and a handwritten touch, not abstract visuals.
None of this is decoration. Every choice traces back to one idea: innovation that respects the institution it's entering.
That's what a Brand Sprint really is. A complete brand.
Strategy, messaging, identity, and the assets to launch, built in ten focused days around a single conviction.
Since the sprint, Collage AI deployed at Harvard and published the results. A 62% increase in learning gains over a baseline semester.
Big love to Ori Nurieli and all the Collage AI team for building something brave in a noisy category.
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