A Platform as Expansive as kyu Itself
kyu’s growth had outpaced its digital presence. Upstatement closed that gap.
When Upstatement joined the kyu Collective in 2022, chief design officer Scott Dasse went to kyu.com to understand what he’d become part of. It didn’t tell him much. “kyu is a mystery to me,” he told its leadership in the vision presentation that would eventually seed a redesign.
The Moment to Move
The mystery had two dimensions, and they compounded each other. kyu’s model — a collective of companies that retain their own identities and client relationships, but collaborate when the work calls for it — resists easy categorization. When member companies go into a co-pitch, there’s a lot of explaining: what the collective is, why it matters, what it means for the client. As a brand, kyu preferred its member companies to speak for themselves but its site needed to establish kyu holistically and serve as a single destination to explain its mission and its portfolio.
When kyu first launched its website in 2017, IDEO had joined the year before and kyu’s New York headquarters had just opened. By 2022, the year Upstatement arrived, the collective had welcomed Gehl, Lexington, SYLVAIN, and several others. But the site had not kept pace. A framework of edges — the organization’s system of categorizing its collective capabilities and work — offered aspirational vocabulary where a welcome mat was needed. A visitor moving through a member company page could see its leaders but not its work. The site did more telling than showing.
In 2023, the collective produced its “Storybook” — a bound volume printed on heavy stock, introducing a visual language with new energy: GT Walsheim and Caslon Pro typefaces, and for the first time, a palette that stretched beyond kyu’s signature blue. But print runs are finite. A digital version extended its reach, but a slide deck is linear, and few people want to advance through 40 pages of brand story. The Storybook proved kyu had something to say about itself … and a website was where that energy needed to land.
Upstatement was briefly engaged in 2023 for research and vision. As a partner, it offered an unusual vantage point: It had experienced the original site as newcomers, and saw firsthand what was missing when it tried to send a prospect somewhere useful. With experience bringing order to brands including Vogue, Nike, Mozilla, and Bloomberg, it understood the brief.
The interview responses Upstatement received laid the site’s limitations bare:
“The current website doesn’t feel as dynamic, exciting, or creative as the breadth of companies in the collective,” said one stakeholder.
The assessment was pointed but the timing was not yet right. By early 2025, it was clear that continually retrofitting the site for new initiatives including kyu House and kyu Pulse was no longer feasible. A relaunch kicked off with a sharpened brief: make the collective and its companies compelling to prospective clients, reflect the caliber and energy of its companies, and build a platform for robust storytelling and lasting visibility — one that would work harder over time. For Upstatement co-founder and then-CEO Mike Swartz, the goal was to “show kyu is open for business.”
The new site needed to exhibit the nuances of the network, its bona fides and breadth, and flex to the moment, be it a new pilot, acquisition or milestone.
“We wanted to avoid creating dead ends to reinforce the sense of intercompany collaboration that exists,” says Nathan Hass, Upstatement’s design director on the project. “On any page, there’s always a next click. You can discover things you didn’t know you were looking for.”
Being in the collective has always carried a halo effect: A company still building out sits alongside IDEO and SYPartners. Case studies live on member company sites; kyu.com surfaces them and sends visitors there directly. The site now makes all those connections tangible.
Finally, a Canvas
While Upstatement was designing and building, the editorial team was briefing member companies on their pages, and curating the messaging, work and assets that would populate the site. When the site launched in late October, it shifted from artifact to infrastructure. The site was designed to circulate its contents — optimized for search, social, and the AI-driven queries that increasingly shape how clients find partners.
“Content is always evolving, perspectives are always evolving, new initiatives are coming up,” adds Hass. “We wanted to build a platform that can power those in the future and enable kyu to iterate.”
The site went live quietly but a Webby nomination in March for Business Website/Blog offered welcome acknowledgment that the digital home of kyu is now worthy of attention and celebration.
kyu keeps evolving. Now, its platform does too.