// Letters — No. 006 — — Seattle — 2 min read
A brand identity in four weeks
TICKIZ needed a whole identity, from the mark to 14 applications, in four weeks. What we built, why, and the two problems a brand can't fix.
TICKIZ sells tickets to two audiences at once. People buying a ticket want it to be quick and safe, and people running an event need a platform they can hand their event to. The brief asked for an identity both would trust, built on a promise of effortless, secure and dependable access, and it gave my studio four weeks to deliver all of it: the mark, colour, type, tone of voice and every place the brand would meet people.
What buyers worry about
After the identity shipped, we went back and read 833 Hacker News comments and Trustpilot reviews about 14 ticketing brands, from Eventbrite and DICE to Ticketmaster and StubHub, to test the work against what people say about buying tickets. Four worries came up again and again: whether the ticket and seller are real, whether the ticket will work at the door, whether they can get their money back, and what it will really cost.
The first two are things an identity can speak to, through how the platform looks and how getting in feels. Refunds and fees are set by the product, so the identity doesn’t pretend to answer them.
Where it shows up
The billboard and the lightbox lead with security: “Seamless Access, Superior Security.” The same plain, confident voice runs from outdoor ads to the app, so TICKIZ sounds like one company wherever you meet it.
On social, a “Ticket tips” series teaches safe buying before it sells anything: buy from trusted platforms, keep your ticket backed up, have it ready at the entrance. In one UK bank’s data from the 2024 Oasis tour, more than 90% of reported concert-ticket scams started on social media, which is where those posts run.
In the web app the ticket and its QR code come first. The app icon and the lanyard pass carry the same mark, a ticket stub fused with a lightning bolt, so the ticket looks like TICKIZ from the phone to the gate.
The system underneath is small: one family of electric blues, one geometric typeface in four weights, and a voice that keeps claims short and instructions plain. In four weeks it covered 14 applications, from a billboard, a hoodie and pins to the web app, the dashboard and an email signature.
What it didn’t do
Refunds and support were the biggest theme in what people wrote, at 207 passages, and the real total price came up 70 times. Neither is touched by this work.
The brief also named organizers as the second audience, but almost everything we delivered faces people buying tickets. Organizers got the tone of voice, the stationery and an email signature, not a piece made for them. If I did it again, I’d build their side next: onboarding, a payout view and a one-page sales sheet in the same blue.
The applications so far are presentation mockups. We don’t have photos of the brand in use or numbers from after launch, so I can’t tell you yet how it performs. TICKIZ’s CEO did call us “one of the most high quality design teams we’ve ever worked with”, and the full case is on alterra.studio.