RFC-007: IBP Branding and Website

[kukabi]

This PR adds RFC-007, a document proposing efforts to improve the branding, design and presentation of IBP.

The RFC document can be viewed here.

[miloskriz]

Hi Kutsal!

I am in favour of this proposal but against the wording you are using to compel a justification for it.

Please take into consideration that there is no need to belittle the current state of the art and make it sound like there is nothing to build upon already.

Hopefully you will find a better wording for the initial statements..

thanks!

Milos

[kukabi]

Hi @miloskriz,

I meant it with all due respect, sorry if it comes across otherwise. Please be sure that this is my attitude towards my own past work too, and know that it’s nothing personal. I’ll review it when I get back to my computer.

Thanks for the support.

PS. RFC updated, details in the commit history, to be squashed before being merged.

[miloskriz]

Thanks Kutsal!

Reconfirming my vote in favour of your proposal.!

Cheers!

Milos

[pmensik]

Hey,

I like the proposal as I think the website deserves a major overhaul, especially if we want to stand out as the best RPC provider in the ecosystem. At the same time, it's a bit difficult to point parachains to any single source of truth in regards to IBP that is clear and informative and the main website should be exactly that.

Also, I have a pretty good experience with LoopLabs, it's a web studio based in Slovakia (thus they offer quite competitive prices) and they have already done plenty of stuff within the ecosystem - be it for Hydration, Kodadot, ourselves or website for our DOT Validator Alliance. For instance, website for our 2nd brand (with static-based blog) including all the graphics, design and several iterations was 2.6k EUR. Just my 2cents, not saying we should go with them.

[kukabi]

Hey @pmensik, thanks for the feedback.

LoopLabs' work is looking pretty good, and that price is very competitive indeed. I'm going to check with Klad for their current prices. I'll post here and let's evaluate after that. Also, it might be good to approach the designers with a rough content map, so they don't get overwhelmed if it ends up more than they expected. I'd be happy to collaborate on this.

[dcolley]

My comments & questions have been covered by comments above, I vote yes to this one

[senseless]

Definitely needed. I had Thomas take another stab at it. This is what he came up with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obXbbto14lw

[tugytur]

I agree we can improve on that part, but before giving my vote I would like to see the budget.

My two cents what I would like to see in the new website:

• Main visitors will be 'builders', so it should be more focused on that target group.
• Would be nice if we had a tool that lets the visitor test the IBP performance and lets it compare to other providers so that they clearly see the advantages.
• status page of the global service and individual locations. We can gather the data from the new DNS setup, prometheus or both.
• Grafana has a feature that lets to embed dashboards into websites, so we could have global real time stats on the website (I can grant you admin access to play around with this)
• easy way to see the all networks we run and be able to easily get url for those networks
• the wiki should be preferably be generated from .MD files from github, this way we members can constantly update it.

Thanks for taking the initiative on this!

[kukabi]

@senseless that's looking good, thanks, I think it could be good input to the graphic design stage.

@tugytur thanks for the input, I think it is the approach that should be taken. These are typically discovered during the initial interview phase. It's a fun discovery process:)

I would recommend working with an agency. I'm going to ask Klad for a rough quote and share it here alongside their process. @senseless & @pmensik could you guys also get quotes and some information regarding their workflow from Thomas & LoopLabs? @pmensik I've been meaning to prepare a content map, but I think @tugytur already gave an idea of what type of things we're after, so we could share that + the current website and wiki, and they probably can come up with a rough quote.

[pmensik]

I am already talking to Loop Labs so hopefully they can come up with some estimates next week.

[kukabi]

Thanks @pmensik, I also wrote to Klad and asked for an approximate quote.

[kukabi]

Guys I'll leave it to @Zmaznevegor, one of the founders of Klad, to present their offer. As I mentioned in the RFC, I've been happily working with them since 2021. Together we delivered:

• SubVT for mobile phones, tablets and watches - (Figma files - click UI or UX from left menu)
• SubVT microsite
• Chainviz (Figma files)
• Helikon website

Cheers.

[Zmaznevegor]

Hi everyone! I’m one of Klad’s co-founders. We are a co-op-type design studio (hence, the “syndicate” in the name) specializing in brand, web, motion, and 3D design. You can find our portfolio here.

When studios provide estimates, they may have different levels of quality in mind. Therefore, I want to share examples of two recent projects we completed at the studio to align on the design quality I aim to maintain for the IBP:

1. Shareio - We did the branding, animations, web design, and development. It’s a good example of how work can feel cohesive through systematic branding and supporting design materials, such as motion. Here you can also find the brand materials we created (please note that some slides contain animations that are visible only in prototype view). This document includes everything from moods to the latest guides. The branding and website took us 1.5 months to complete from scratch.
2. Guardrail - We also did the branding, web design, and development. The entire project took us around 1 month to design and develop.

Both examples involved 4 designers in the process, and all of them would be involved in the IBP redesign if we are given this opportunity.

Regarding time and cost estimates:

• Branding - 3850 EUR, 2-3 weeks
• Web design - 4620 EUR, 2 weeks
• Web development - 4620 EUR, 2-3 weeks

In our estimates, we count web design and development as a 1:1 ratio to account for all the small microanimations, loading sequences, and parallaxes, which are usually time-consuming but make the website feel smooth.

If selected, we will do our best to deliver award-level design like we have done before — but even better.

[robertruzek]

Hey everyone, I am Robert from LoopLabs. Big thanks to Petr for the recommendation—it means a lot to us. Just to give you a quick rundown, we’re LoopLabs, a development company based in Slovakia, and we’ve shipped some cool projects in the Polkadot ecosystem. Here’s what we’ve been up to:

hydration.net - Our latest project for Hydration, the top DEX on Polkadot. We handled the development, while an external team took care of the branding and web design.
bsx.fi - Another representative solution we built for the same team behind Hydration.
rubynodes.io - This one was mentioned by Petr—it's a representative solution for their second brand.

And here are a few projects outside of Polkadot ecosystem that we’re proud of:

ejoin.eu/en - One of our biggest projects so far, it’s for a company in the EV industry and features a product configurator and an interactive map of their charging network.
lilawadi.sk/en - An ecommerce site for a chain of Thai massage salons in Bratislava, Slovakia
neverendingstory.sk - A more creative solution for a company in the movie biz.

We also run a Polkadot initiative called polkassets.com, which is a directory of project assets like logos and token icons, saving Polkadot designers hours of their precious time.

Here’s our price estimate:
A. Web design (branding refresh included): 3,200€, 3 - 4 weeks

B. Web development: 4,800€, 3 weeks

We’re planning to build everything with Next.js to keep things fast and smooth!