Emma Kaniuk rejects biotech sameness in Audax Biosciences’ rebrand — The Brand Identity – Home of the Greatest in Graphic & Brand Design

In 2018, oNKo-innate launched with a name that made perfect sense – a clever reference to Natural Killer cells and oncology that reflected their narrow focus on specific immune system components. By 2024, that same name had become a constraint. The biotechnology company had evolved into something broader, developing immunotherapies for both oncology and autoimmune diseases, but found itself hemmed in by market perception.

When they approached Emma Kaniuk & Company with a brief for a new website, the creative director pushed back. They’d launched their current site just a year earlier. Building another website without addressing the fundamental strategic questions would only bring them back to this same place 12 months later. The conversation expanded from deliverables to foundation – new name, positioning, visual identity, and then website. For a self-funded team with long-term ambitions, the investment in clarity made sense.

Kaniuk’s approach to assembling the project team subverted typical agency structures. Rather than fitting the work into an existing team, she diagnosed the core needs first, then curated collaborators to match. A science journalist based in Oxford joined the strategy phases to bring a questioning, journalistic lens to the technical work. A copywriting duo in Dunedin, a designer in Sydney, a web developer in Melbourne, a visual artist in Tokyo, an animator from Armenia – each specialist chosen for what they could uniquely contribute. The resulting strategic platform, Radical Science, captured what makes this company distinct: the fusion of deeply creative, unconventional thinking with rigorous scientific pursuit. It gives permission to be both artistic and exacting, visionary and precise. The name Audax Biosciences emerged from this foundation – ‘Audax’ signalling boldness through its Latin roots, while ‘Biosciences’ liberates the company to accurately communicate its expansive reach.

At the identity’s centre sits a custom ‘x’ that embeds multiple meanings in deceptively simple geometry. Designer Sarah Gladwell started with an infinity symbol, chopping the ends to create the letterform. “That idea of limitless potential felt spot-on for scientific ambition,” she explains. “Then, duplicating the ‘x’ instantly formed a DNA double helix. It was an accidental win. That simple geometric trick embedded the blueprint of biology right into the logo, giving us a scientifically rooted reference that works as a singular, recognisable mark.” The extended letterforms stretch horizontally, signalling speed and resilience. From the start, the team considered how the mark would move dynamically on screen, collaborating with animator Suz Sirunyan and web developer Lane Wirihana Le Pervost-Smith to ensure the form served both static and motion applications.

The technical specificity of the project demanded close collaboration with Audax’s scientific team to create what Kaniuk describes as a library of hyper-realistic biological forms. These weren’t meant to be confused with scientific reality, but rather to express possibility while remaining grounded in specific cellular behaviours and the colours of laboratory dyes. The choice to use SideFX Houdini and render in Redshift came from wanting the result to reflect both the technology’s capabilities and the deep knowledge held by 3D artist Rejor Jiao. “We adopted a highly iterative approach, beginning with a broad spectrum of biological sketches – some rooted closely in animal-cell morphology, others more speculative and abstract,” Jiao explains. “With each iteration, we refined and narrowed the shapes, behaviours and the visual language of the forms, allowing their final identities to emerge gradually over time. The procedural workflow and the powerful simulation features in Houdini allowed us to iterate quickly and efficiently. For the rendering, a combination of physical-based and stylised shading techniques in Redshift was used to ensure the forms felt both convincingly real and visually distinctive.”

These futuristic rendered forms sit alongside simpler mono-linear textbook-style illustrations and bright laboratory photography, creating a visual system that moves between future vision and grounded evidence. The typography follows a similar logic – Motorik paired with the serif Oceanic Text. The serif brings humanisation and elevation, grounding the identity in something more enduring than tech-forward novelty alone.

Competitive analysis during discovery revealed a category drowning in sameness. Removing logos from competitor homepages made the sites nearly indistinguishable – sparse layouts, default fonts, stock imagery, and most tellingly, an overwhelming reliance on teal greens and navy blues. The colour combination, a decade-old shorthand for ‘reliable’ and ‘professional,’ presented an easy opportunity to differentiate. The palette draws directly from laboratory equipment and dyes on site – rational neutrals punctuated by fluorescent pops, with each colour chosen to work harmoniously while remaining distinct enough to differentiate variables in complex graphs and charts. The fluorescent chartreuse that leads the palette came from what Kaniuk describes as tacit knowledge – the honed feeling designers develop after spending every day looking closely at things. Rather than look for overworked explanations and justifications, she sees value in trusting distinctly human perspective as legitimate design methodology. Particularly now, when machine processes and visual reference echo chambers threaten to flatten culture.

“By distilling deep technical research into an elegantly simple solution, we were surprised to see how Emma’s creative approach paralleled our own medicine development process,” concludes CEO Jai Rautela. “Her ability to frame the brand identity problem and guide us through a structured creative process led to an outstanding outcome that clearly reflected our uniqueness and ambition in a very competitive space.”