As the team prepared to launch their first physical product, they faced a critical inflection point. To scale beyond a niche Web3 audience and enter the highly competitive wearables market, Pulse needed more than a visual refresh. It needed a brand transformation that remained true to its community while resonating with a much broader, culturally fluent audience.

We saw an opportunity to break away from the conventions of the wearables category and define an entirely new space. Makina didn’t need to compete on louder metrics or sharper claims. It needed to reframe the role of data itself and reposition technology as a partner in personal growth, not a judge of performance.

The wearables market is crowded with established players and familiar messaging. Most brands speak in the same terms: efficiency, optimisation, targets, and gains. While effective, this mindset leaves little room for individuality, curiosity, or emotional connection.

Pulse’s challenges were twofold. First, it needed to evolve from an early-stage, tech-led product into a cohesive and desirable brand built for growth, partnerships, and long-term relevance. Second, it needed to differentiate meaningfully from traditional fitness trackers without losing the credibility and sophistication of the underlying technology.

To move beyond being “another wearable,” the former Pulse brand needed to carve out a new position that resonated with people who see wellness not as a rigid system, but as something to explore and evolve over time.

From strategy to verbal and visual expression, Pulse’s new identity as Makina reframes personal wellness away from rigid goal-setting and toward dynamic exploration. 

Developed in collaboration with Reed Words, the new name Makina signals a playful, rebellious, machine-augmented future. It hints at the invisible systems shaping our bodies and behaviours, while remaining approachable, curious, and human.

Makina’s communication maintains technical credibility while speaking in a language that feels supportive and personally relevant. It educates without lecturing, guides without controlling, and motivates without overwhelming.

Rather than treating data as something to optimise against, Makina invites people to engage with it as a prompt for reflection and experimentation. The brand encourages users to notice patterns, test behaviours, and evolve at their own pace—shifting the role of technology from performance tracker to trusted companion.

The refreshed identity captures the pivotal moment when someone chooses growth over inertia and feels compelled to share that breakthrough with others. Makina is repositioned as a personal experimentation platform, expressed through the ethos Play. Discover. Grow.

Drawing on retro-futuristic cyberpunk aesthetics and anime influences rooted in the audience’s counter-cultural reference points, we created a visual language that challenges category norms. The identity is bold, expressive, and deliberately playful to stand apart from the clinical, performance-led look of traditional wearables.

The logomark is inspired by Japanese anime lettering and east-meets-west cultural influences, with subtle references to electrical symbols that suggest unseen forces at work. The custom, hand-drawn wordmark continues this energy with bold, characterful lettering charged with a cyberpunk attitude.

Typography is confident and poster-like, reinforcing Makina’s fearless tone. The brand uses colour sparingly, drawing on a noughties retro-futuristic palette of chrome and metallic textures, while expressive gradients add drama and depth. Motion design takes cues from retro video games, blending nostalgia with a playful sci-fi edge.

DEPT® and Makina’s art direction fully embodies Play. Discover. Grow. Models interact with supersized product forms to express the power and playfulness unlocked through Makina’s technology. We used AI and 3D techniques to build a fantastical, futuristic world audiences can step into and feel part of—grounded in culture, attitude, and a strong sense of community.

Together, these elements create a rich, confident, and inviting brand world that brings Makina to life as a movement defined by curiosity, experimentation, and growth.

Makina now occupies a distinct position within the wellness wearables space as a confident challenger brand with a clear POV and cultural edge. 

Comprehensive brand guidelines support rollout across product, digital, marketing, and experiential touchpoints, ensuring consistency while allowing for expression and evolution over time. The new identity equips Makina with the clarity, flexibility, and confidence needed to launch and expand into a broader ecosystem of products and experiences. 

After just three months since rebranding from Pulse to Makina, the brand has already seen significant early indicators that the new positioning is resonating with and fuelling engagement from key audiences. 

This post-launch traction has helped Makina establish a compelling presence in a highly competitive category, setting a strong foundation for future growth and commercial potential. 

This project brought together brand strategy, naming, visual identity, verbal expression, and emerging technology within a single, collaborative team. From strategy to execution, every element was designed to work as part of a cohesive system.

Custom logomarks, AI-assisted art direction, and 3D modelling enabled a brand expression that is both imaginative and precisely crafted. Led by DEPT®’s Brand Experience team in London, the work demonstrates our ability to fuse creativity, technology, and cultural insight—building brands that are not only distinctive, but designed for what comes next.