Developed in collaboration with creative agency OH-SO Digital, the award-winning brand identity reflects zerothird’s ambition to make quantum-secure communications commercially accessible and stand out in an emerging technology market.
Vienna, November 9, 2026 – zerothird, the Vienna-based provider of entanglement-based Quantum Key Distribution (eQKD), has been named a Red Dot Winner 2026 in the Red Dot Award: Brands & Communication Design competition for its brand naming and corporate design.
Introduced in 2025, the new brand identity reflects the company’s strategic focus on quantum-secure communications for critical infrastructure. The challenge was to translate a highly complex technology into a distinctive, memorable brand that communicates both technological leadership and commercial maturity.
In an emerging industry where communication is often dominated by scientific concepts and research breakthroughs, many quantum companies struggle to differentiate themselves. zerothird set out to take a different approach: avoiding the familiar visual language of quantum technology and, above all, becoming more than just another “Q” company.
The brand also needed to communicate a fundamental distinction: while much of the quantum industry is still focused on research and development, zerothird’s technology is commercially available and being deployed today. With customer applications across transport, finance and critical communications, the company wanted an identity that reflects its transition from pioneering technology to real-world commercial solutions.
Translating complex technology into a distinctive brand
To bring this vision to life, zerothird partnered with Hamburg-based creative agency OH-SO Digital. Led by Design Lead Peter Riedel, the team took inspiration from the underlying technology and its promise: secure communication without a third party.
zerothird’s entanglement-based QKD technology enables the generation of shared cryptographic keys using entangled photons. Rather than transmitting the keys themselves across the network, the technology allows communicating parties to establish secure keys locally, adding a quantum-based layer of protection to critical communications infrastructure.
This principle became the foundation of the new brand name and visual identity.
“One sender, one receiver, no third party. This product promise gave rise to the name zerothird. The brand design follows the same radical clarity: a wordmark inspired by scientific notation that feels precise without looking complex. A bold statement in the otherwise rather inaccessible world of quantum technology,” explains Peter Riedel, Design Lead at OH-SO Digital.
For zerothird CEO Felix Tiefenbacher, finding the right name was a central part of the brief: “I wanted a name that says something about our business without feeling boring or forced. A smart way of explaining our product that makes people think and serves as a conversation starter. That is exactly what we achieved with zerothird.”
International recognition for a brand built to stand out
The Red Dot Award recognizes the creative achievement behind an identity designed to make an advanced technology company both distinctive and approachable.
“The Red Dot Award is a fantastic recognition of what we set out to achieve with our brand. But what matters even more to us is the response we receive from customers and partners. When a brand helps people understand what we do, remember who we are and start a conversation, it has achieved its purpose. Receiving this international recognition makes it even more rewarding,” says Felix Tiefenbacher.
About the Red Dot Award
The Red Dot Award is one of the world’s largest and best-known international design competitions. Organized annually by Red Dot GmbH & Co. KG, based in Essen, Germany, it is internationally recognized as a mark of outstanding design quality. The international jury of the Red Dot Award: Brands & Communication Design recognizes projects distinguished by their design quality, creativity and execution.
About zerothird
zerothird is a Vienna-based company specializing in entanglement-based Quantum Key Distribution (eQKD), building on the field of quantum entanglement research recognized by the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics. Its portfolio includes managed quantum key services (QKaaS), eQKD hardware and laboratory equipment. The company serves customers across finance, energy, critical infrastructure, telecommunications and government.
Press contact:Mira Dechant
Chief Marketing Officer zerothird
Mira.dechant@zerothird.com 
