Work · Case study
Nigeria’s biggest digital bank rebuilt itself around one promise: more life. The studio gave that promise a voice you can hear in three seconds. A welcome, answered. Built from an indigenous greeting, an agogo and a kalimba reshaped by hand, and the sound of naira counted note by note.
The mark
The brand mnemonic. Welcome, then thank you, in the time it takes to open the app.
The brief
In August 2026, Kuda unveiled More Life, its biggest rebrand since launch. The standalone K became a full wordmark. New type, a deeper purple, and photography that traded cards and phone screens for everyday Nigerian life: markets, danfos, a plate of food, a face that just got good news. The positioning moved with it, from the bank of the free to the digital bank built for Nigerians who want more from life.
The sound had one brief. Feel unmistakably Nigerian to anyone who hears it, anywhere. Stay short, polished and functional enough to live inside a banking app, right next to a successful transfer. And carry the whole feeling of More Life in the time it takes to open the app. Nigerian music is warm, so the palette leaned on indigenous instruments with natural resonance: the kalimba, the agogo, the shekere. Even when a sound was shaped or processed, it had to keep its harmonic warmth. Never cold, never digitally flat.
The idea
Two phrases from the indigenous language of Lagos, where Kuda is at home. Kuda speaks first, as the host. The listener answers, in the relieved, grateful tone of someone just let into something better.
That back and forth is the entire logo.
How it was built
Movement lives in the cadence, not a climb.
The mark rises and falls the way people actually greet each other, not in a steep ascent. E Kaabo opens under the rising KUDA wordmark: the welcome into a new reality, spoken to the Nigerian who wants to know their money on a different level. E shey answers under the descriptor line. You say thank you when someone hands you the life you were reaching for, and a little more than you expected.
True textures, shaped by hand.
Two indigenous instruments carry the mark: the kalimba and the agogo. Both were modified with intent, pitched and layered and processed to sit inside a modern fintech mix, and never scrubbed of what makes them themselves. The kalimba keeps its woody, thumb-struck attack. The agogo keeps the bright iron ring it has in a live band. Designed enough to feel new, real enough that a Nigerian ear places them on the first note. Under the welcome runs a counted-money sound, so the greeting carries a literal message. Your money is at home here, and so are you.
It lands on the sound of money showing up.
As the second phrase settles, a real cash-register recording closes it out, clipped short so you catch the suggestion of the kaching without the full ring. Not a slot machine paying out. The steady confidence of getting more from your money, and more for your life. A soft ethereal rise sits under the whole thing and carries that lifting feeling to the end.
The tape
For the money under the welcome, the studio recorded someone flicking through naira notes, counting by hand, the way you do when the amount matters. That raw sound is what sits beneath E Kaabo. It is the bank you can hear before you read a single word.
The film
For the launch, the studio scored the whole rebrand film. Field recordings of Lagos and the wider Nigerian space carry the middle of it, around the eleven-second mark. Foley and sound design were cut to the motion graphics frame by frame, and the mnemonic was opened up into a full soundtrack, returning as a melodic line so the mark could become a place you walk into.
Kuda · More Life
Sonic identity, brand mnemonic and launch sound design by Sweetness Studios. The More Life rebrand, its wordmark, palette and film, belongs to Kuda and the brand team behind it. The studio’s job was the part you hear.
A brand has a voice whether it plans one or not. This one was on purpose.
Sonic branding is a door this studio keeps open. If a brand needs a sound that means something, this is where it starts.