01 — Diagnosis
The Problem.
Gitcoin became too institutional — losing the grassroots energy and the credibility of the community that originally built it. The brand looked like an enterprise SaaS company, not a public-goods funder.
← Case studiesThe rebrand that
Gitcoin · Case Study
The rebrand that
returned home.
A rebrand that walks Gitcoin back to its lunar-punk roots — and forward into something new: the database of everything funding on Ethereum.
Year2026
RoleBrand · Product
StackNext.js · Three.js
Read~6 min
What is Gitcoin?
Funding the open internet.
Gitcoin is a decentralized platform on Ethereum that helps fund open-source software and digital public goods, connecting developers with creators and community donors through hackathons, bounties, and grants.
It has done so since 2017 — helping kickstart projects like ENS, Uniswap, 1inch, and yearn.finance, routing over $63 million to more than 3,700 open-source and decentralized projects.
$63MRouted to public goods
3,700+Open-source projects funded
2017→Years supporting OSS
The brief, as I saw it
Lost the plot.
Time to find it.
Gitcoin had drifted upmarket. The brand polished itself into something too institutional for the community that built it — and lost credibility with both.
02 — Prescription
The Solution.
Return to the lunar-punk look and movement. Turn Gitcoin into a database of everything funding — the premier place where Ethereum funds solutions to its most important problems, with the team curating the funding landscape.
Achieving the database feel
Browse, search, edit, contribute.
If Gitcoin is becoming a database, it should feel like one — fast, navigable, and editable by anyone. It has to look like documentation and feel like a product. Six principles guided every UI decision.
Browsable + searchable
Search is front and center. ⌘K from anywhere. Ask AI inline.
Tree-explorer sidebar
A file-tree on the left. Always know where you are in the database.
Breadcrumbs everywhere
Every article shows its lineage. Easy back-out, easy lateral moves.
Time-to-read on every page
Set expectations before the reader starts.
Edit on GitHub
Every article is a PR away from being improved. Transparent, OSS.
Generative asset system
Three.js generator for hero art + OG images. Consistent at scale.
The work, on screen
Search
Search, front and center.
The header search bar lives next to the primary nav — visible on every page. A ⌘K shortcut summons a global overlay that floats above the page. Ask AI is one tab away, for when the answer isn't an article title.
Breadcrumbs & Header
You are here. Always.
Every article carries its full lineage — Home → Mechanisms → Aqueduct — so readers never feel lost. The header keeps the wordmark, nav, search box, and the Partner CTA in the same place on every page. Time-to-read sits directly under the lede.
Ask AI
An assistant that actually reads the docs.
A right-side panel grounded in the database itself, pre-seeded with first-visit questions — "What is quadratic funding?", "Show me active campaigns", "How does retroactive funding work?" Opens with ⌘I, closes the same way.
Edit on GitHub
Every article is a PR away.
At the bottom of every page sits a single luminous button: Edit on GitHub. It opens an issue or PR against the page's source — turning the whole site into a contributable repository. The glow is the only place the lunar-punk language allows itself to actually glow, saved for the one moment that signals participation.
Tree Sidebar
The whole database, in the left rail.
A file-explorer sidebar mirrors the repo. Campaigns · Research · Apps · Mechanisms · Case Studies — each folder opens to its children, with the current page highlighted. Contributors orient immediately; first-time visitors browse the funding landscape the way they'd browse a codebase.
