Ruby is a small girl with a big imagination: her animal friends help her navigate through sometimes seemingly irrational world. In some ways she’s like Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes, in others she’s like Pippi Longstockings. Ruby’s world has rules and reason, repetition and rhythm, ridicules and riddles and one can build something out of nothing.

Hello Ruby started in 2009 as an art project by Linda Liukas, programmer, storyteller and illustrator from Helsinki, but was boosted by a widely popular Kickstarter campaign in 2014. That was the opening shot, not only for the computing book the Kickstarter campaign was about, but for a comprehensive children’s computing brand with a goal to create the worlds most whimsical way to learn about technology, computing and coding.

Kokoro & Moi was responsible for the identity of Hello Ruby, developing its online and offline presence, as well as working on the various brand applications and products.

The visual identity highlights the importance of playfulness and curiosity, when learning about coding. The color palette is vivid and wide. The logo is built of colorful building blocks, with characters playfully rotating the full circle. Friendly Maax Rounded serves as the primary font, and is accompanied by Maax Mono, a monospaced font, which harkens back to the aesthetics of early computers. With scissors we cut paper pieces to create Hello Ruby Cutout, a custom made font, to add more playfulness, fun and a DIY attitude to the identity. Paper pieces are also used as building blocks for the pictograms, illustrations and animations. The stories and exercises are told through Linda's cute and imaginative illustrations. The identity system forms a playful and structured setting for these drawings, and adds layer of functionality to the storytelling.