Layered Ways of Seeing

A layered visual identity for NFT photography—drawing on Jasper Johns’ 0 through 9 to create a contemporary brand that questions how we look, and how meaning is constructed.

0 3 9 A began as an exploration into how digital art, photography and brand identity can be compressed into a single, resonant visual language. Influenced by Jasper Johns’ 0 through 9—a work in which the artist stacks the numerals 0 to 9 into one layered form—we were drawn to the idea of adopting something universally familiar and transforming it through process, materiality and interpretation. Johns’ intention to challenge how we look, and how we understand what we are looking at, became the conceptual anchor for the project.

For 0 3 9 A, the overlaid numerals act as both an index and an abstraction: a signal that the work sits between photography, digital craft and a more ambiguous, immersive experience. This visual layering becomes a form of compression—multiple identities, meanings and modes of looking folded into a single mark. It nods to the logic of NFTs, where value often sits not at the surface but in the metadata, the structure and the underlying behaviour of the piece.

The brand identity and gallery language were developed to echo these themes: clarity intertwined with complexity, familiar forms reassembled to create something new. This approach guided the graphic system, typography, framing devices and digital behaviours. The visual identity shifts subtly depending on context—sometimes precise, sometimes elusive—mirroring the way Johns encouraged viewers to reconsider the act of seeing itself.

The outcome is a contemporary digital brand rooted in fine-art thinking: a flexible, minimal system that foregrounds the photography while remaining conceptually rich, tactile and unmistakably its own.