Case study · KANGARU
A brand system built to strengthen recognition and engagement
KANGARU is a startup community connecting founders, builders and innovators in Australia. We created a bold, flexible identity that captures the spirit of movement, collaboration and curiosity, turning a local network into a vibrant ecosystem for growth and exchange.
Context
From one Sydney meetup to a national community
KANGARU originated from a Sydney meetup involving Andrey Khusid, the founder of Miro, and 50 people from the Russian-speaking IT ecosystem. What began as a single gathering quickly grew into a community of developers, startup founders and tech professionals.
Growth brought a challenge: multiple stakeholders (three founders, a strategic advisor, a volunteer working group and active members) all needed to align around one shared brand. Without a unified foundation, every event, post and partner conversation sounded a little different.
Process
A brand platform before any pixels
- Brand platform development. Defining the community's values and what it stands for.
- Tone and positioning. Establishing how KANGARU speaks and where it sits in the ecosystem.
- Visual direction. An identity reflecting startup energy, cultural connection, openness and ambition.
- Communication logic. Consistent rules across meetups, events, social media, partner communication and founder introductions.
As the community's UI/UX and design consultant, I worked alongside iseenow.agency's creative director and copywriters, and helped shape the standards now used as the reference for new city chapters, including the Melbourne expansion.
Solution
One identity, every touchpoint
The identity system covers brand strategy, verbal identity, visual identity, voice identity, communication design, event design and social media design, so the community looks and sounds the same whether you meet it at a Founder Stories talk, on Instagram or in a partner deck.
The system is built for repetition without fatigue: the Founder Stories speaker cards adapt to any guest, venue and format (Canva Space, AWS offices, online), while badges, worksheets and venue screens carry the same green-and-lilac energy into the room.
Digital presence
Tech in motion. People in mind.
The brand lives online at kangaru.au: a single-page site carrying the manifesto, the Founder Stories series and the faces behind the community, set entirely in the system's typography and colour.
On Instagram, the same grid logic (manifesto tiles alternating with team portraits and event coverage) keeps the feed unmistakably KANGARU, and keeps the events full: 15+ events since May 2025, averaging 60+ attendees each.
“Our community brand identity was shaped with real depth and intention. It became a meaningful part of establishing KANGARU and took the whole community to a new level.”
Results