Cytiva
When Danaher Corporation, a global conglomerate spanning industries from day-to-day industrial product to medical devices, acquired GE Life Sciences, the goal was to expand its life sciences portfolio and create a brand that would stand for innovation, precision, and humanity. The acquisition required a complete rebrand—one that would be ready to launch the moment the deal was finalized.
The new brand needed everything: a name, logo, and visual system that felt elevated and modern while communicating speed and precision. At first, the assignment seemed straightforward, but the project soon split into two phases. The first phase required us to design the core brand elements—logo, color system, and custom typeface—that could quickly “find and replace” the GE identity across digital, print, and product materials immediately upon launch. The second phase was to build out a complete visual system using those elements, establishing a long-term identity that would live far beyond the transition.
After extensive exploration and testing, the decision was made to retain a symbol and name that carried equity from the acquisition. Designed by Josef Müller-Brockmann, the mark offered a timeless foundation. We partnered with Dalton Maag to develop a customized brand typeface, starting with one of their popular fonts and refining it to match the footprint of GE Inspira, ensuring an easy transition for all existing materials.
From there, the design language took on a Swiss-inspired clarity—simple, bold, and sophisticated. We built out a full visual system, including a custom pictogram suite to represent scientific processes across the brand. Initially static, these pictograms evolved into animations that helped explain complex workflows more clearly. I worked directly with scientists to understand their methods, translating their processes into visual forms made of lines, shapes, and motion.
We also developed an illustration style tailored for the Asian market, collaborating closely with our regional design team to adapt the look and feel for digital and video applications. The imagery approach became a key differentiator in the category—focusing not on machines and sterile labs but on the human power behind the science.
The result was a world-class biopharma brand that balanced scientific precision with human warmth. The successful launch opened the door to years of continued collaboration—refining the brand strategy, building ad campaigns, shaping its voice, designing environments, and developing social content. The response from both clients and customers was overwhelmingly positive. The new design quickly became recognized across the industry and is now regarded as a benchmark for global biopharma branding.
Getting up to speed
The process itself was unconventional. We joined the project to help develop the name and visual identity while another agency handled the strategy. It wasn’t the typical setup, but we made it work—building a story around the design and later refining the strategy once our partnership with the client deepened.
At the time, the GE brand relied heavily on its legacy and iconic symbol, but the sub-brands that lived beneath it felt inconsistent and lacked cohesion. It was a rough yet tactical starting point, but once we established the foundational elements, we were able to flex our creativity and push the work forward.
Keeping the same footprint
One of the client’s first requests was a custom typeface that would maintain the same footprint as GE Inspira. This was a practical challenge: the new font needed to be a direct “find and replace” to avoid reflowing text or redesigning materials—saving both time and cost during rollout. We partnered with Dalton Maag to create a custom type that met those technical requirements while elevating the overall aesthetic. The resulting font performed beautifully across all formats—from low-resolution displays and standard printers to high-quality publications and digital screens.
Exploration
Because of the sheer scale of the brand, our logo exploration had to be just as bold. We explored ways to visualize speed and precision while keeping in mind one major constraint: the logo needed to fit into the same circular mold once occupied by the GE “meatball.” Redoing machine molds across thousands of instruments would have been prohibitively expensive, so retaining a round form was not just a design choice—it was a strategic one.
Design with Hugo Collective, Christian Dierig, Donna Hadfield, Joseph Maruca, and animations by Paco Aguayo
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Branding