An in-house studio that lets the brand sustain its hypergrowth without dilution.
We started with Ledger in 2020, at the peak of the Bitcoin frenzy. The brand was accelerating hard and wanted to keep what made it singular on the way up. We rolled out a rebrand, and above all built an unusually solid in-house studio.
The engagement
Scope
Design system creation, asset application across every touchpoint, talent sourcing, integration into five internal teams
Duration
From 2020, long-term and ad hoc
The stakes
Scaling fast without diluting takes an in-house studio, not one more agency.
At that pace, every month brought new products, new markets, new channels. Renting that capacity meant handing brand consistency to agencies that barely knew web3. Ledger did not need an agency. It needed an in-house studio that could hold the brand across packaging, product, motion, CRM, education and social, and scale without ever bending the identity.
5
internal teams supported: marketing, design, education, content, social media
+25
freelance expertises mobilized
1
design system, applied everywhere
Where the value was stuck
Building a pool of independent talent close to web3 culture.
Instead of hiring in a rush or bringing an agency back in, we built a pool of independents already fluent in web3: hardware wallets, self-custody, the crypto community. The pool became a direct extension of the in-house studio, available by the week or the quarter, with no ramp-up on the culture and nobody in the middle.
Fluent
Independents who already know the product, the vocabulary and the crypto audience.
Embedded
Long-term or ad hoc, inside the internal teams rather than beside them.
Framed
Brand onboarding materials built specifically for Ledger, to shorten the learning curve and speed up delivery.
The build · three moves
From design to consistency.
01
The design system
Built off the rebrand, then extended to the touchpoints the agency never covered. Components, icon language, product treatments: the rules that let five teams ship without asking each other what the brand allows.
02
The talent pool
Web3 experts, picked for what they know about the space as much as for their craft: UX and UI, product design, packaging, illustration, social media management, content, NFT, motion, copywriting, project direction. Embedded long-term or brought in ad hoc, depending on the need.
5
internal teams supported: marketing, design, education, content, social media
+25
freelance expertises, from packaging design to NFT
40
freelancers mobilized across the engagement
180
projects delivered
03
The application
Packaging, motion, CRM, UX, campaigns, retail: the system running against a demanding, fast-moving audience. This is where a design system either earns its keep or becomes a PDF nobody opens.
Results
180
projects delivered
+25
creative expertises mobilized
40
freelancers mobilized
5
internal teams supported
1
design system, extended year after year
years
of engagement since 2020, still running
What they now own
The assets
A design system that lives
Extended by the internal teams rather than frozen in a document nobody updates.
An internal studio that ships
Ledger scaled its own studio and covers its growing need for specialized content.
A specialized network
Web3 talents who know the product, reachable long-term or for a week.
Speed as a habit
One hundred and eighty projects delivered, with no brief ever waiting more than 48 hours.
What we would do again
Treating freelance sourcing as a way to strengthen in-house capability.
Source for the sector
In web3, a designer who understands the product saves more time than one who is simply fast.
Becoming an extension of the in-house team
Work with independents who slot into the company’s rituals and share its culture.
Building a tailor-made onboarding
Onboarding materials specific to Ledger: the culture, the product, the system. Every independent is productive from the first brief, with no ramp-up on the invoice.
Marketing is your most defensible asset.
