“How to create world’s top aesthetic NFT？”
This question has bothered me for a long time in the past few months. As a senior traditional operations professional, I am quite confused by projects like 「mfers」, 「CrypToadz」... And also, I am confused， by the Anime NFT like 「Azuki」, which is priced higher than other similar NFT collections like 「KPR」 「Valhalla」... Here's what I learned from these amazing projects after months of thinking. And here are my pieces of advice on how to build a Web3 IP. Just some personal opinions, I know there are lots of pioneers fighting in this field; we are fellow travelers, hoping to listen to your advice.
Don't be so serious
I would like to say, the most aesthetic NFT I have ever seen is 「KPR」. While the floor price of this NFT collection is 0.04 ETH right now, I think most of its fans would be unhappy about the price of this project. I think the main reason is this Web3 IP is too serious. The more serious, the more work you should do well in the IP shaping. This is not to mean you should do some visual identity work or give out a legendary narrative. All this work should be arranged precisely in their places. If you just focus on one or two of these areas, this serious IP would be too high for the audience to receive. We could see a lot of meme coins booming at the moment; they are of coarse art, but the coarse art works well. So, just don’t be so serious. Web 2 IP shaping used billions of dollars for arranging well in all areas. For a Web 3 IP, just let the narrative come from the DAO.
Unique artistic style & Identical brand tone
A unique artistic style helps you stand out in the market. Most NFTs look the same in the art style. Like the same species, the same angle, the same elements like rainbows or something. These similarities will make the audience wonder why they need to buy this NFT. While the unique art style makes a sense of necessity why people should own one of your NFT collections. An identical brand tone is the hardest thing in web 3 IP branding. I have to mention 「Azuki」 now. The Azuki project achieves an extremely uniform standard for the use of color and shading. As a sideways head, Azuki does not have any dark shading colors, and all the shadows are expressed in black. In the choice of colors, Azuki also achieves extreme uniformity; you can find the brown of the hair is the same as the brown of the clothes. This almost perverse system of color recognition gives the Azuki series an art style of unparalleled height. This extreme aesthetic is not built on a serious IP narrative, nor on complex compositions and elements, but on the team's detailed control of the NFT project.
Innovative ways to keep IP alive
In the traditional IP building model, it is very important to keep the IP alive. Once an IP has failed to excite users for a few weeks or months in a row, even the team that created the IP will lose interest in it, and the fact that Web3 IPs are built faster and need more hype than traditional IPs means that the mood of Web3 IPs cools down much faster. This is a very painful thing; on one hand, project owners are trying their best to create newer stories to attract the market; on the other hand, the floor price of NFT is falling lower and lower. In fact, one thing we all fail to realize is that IP has a life cycle; and compared to traditional IP, the life cycle of Web3 IP will only be shorter, and I think the life cycle of a relatively objective NFT IP is around two months. This is why NFT always punishes "diamond hands." We have to find a way to make web3 IP alive, and Sakura NFT is doing it, and I think a lot of other people are trying to do it, and I'm sure there will be a winner amongst us, and I'm looking forward to that winner.
I realize that words only may be better suited to the way Web3 is communicated, but this piece is not written for potential customers, but rather some reflections for the pioneers in the NFT field, in the hope that we can break through this bottleneck and look forward to the NFT summer of 2024.
If you are interested in our project - Sakura NFT, feel free to DM me.