Max Valiquette, Director of Brand Design at Attentive, talked about partnering with an agency, the concept of ‘Journeys’, and how and why they chose yellow as their prominent color.

Can you introduce us to Attentive and its initial branding?

From the beginning, our focus as a company has been on our customers. 

Our brand name, Attentive, was intentionally selected to represent our core goal: to be attentive to our customers’ needs while delivering thoughtful, engaging experiences to their customers through personalized messaging.

You mentioned on the Attentive blog that a rebrand should be tied to a catalyst. What was the catalyst that prompted you to rebrand?

We have grown so much as a business in the past two years and we work with more and more brands every day. We saw an opportunity to better tell the stories of these brands and how they use Attentive to better connect with their customers.

Another factor that comes with fast growth is it can be a real stress test for any design system.

Shortly after joining, I performed a full brand audit to allow myself and other key stakeholders to get a truly objective sense of what was working and what wasn’t. It’s always so helpful to see it all plainly laid out. 

It was as a result of this exercise and the aforementioned “catalyst” that we were able to confidently forge ahead with a full rebrand.  

How did the rebranding process go? Were there any challenges that you encountered?

We determined early on that it made a lot of sense to partner with an agency for the rebrand. It’s important to get an outside perspective in the mix. 

I was able to staff my own team after joining Attentive. 

They had a really unique perspective since they got a chance to work in the legacy design system, allowing us to identify where the system was falling short in terms of flexibility and our design standards. 

So, I knew it was essential to work closely and collaborate meaningfully with any partner we brought on. 

We sent out RFPs to several super talented agencies and in the end found High Tide was kindred in their approach and vision for what we could achieve. 

The global pandemic definitely presented some challenges: High Tide was adjusting to remote work, I hired my entire team completely remote, and during the entire rebrand process, we couldn’t even meet in person. 

What that meant to us was that good communication was even more essential. I don’t know what we would have done without collaborative tools like Figma and Miro.

What’s the story behind your new logo? 

You always hear stories about hundreds of logo concepts and iterations, but honestly, we landed on a logo design that we loved really early on. Of course, we tweaked and polished it from there. 

I think once we landed on our strategy—this concept of “Journeys” and the way a conversation can be like a remarkable journey—a lot of style definitions really started to come together pretty magically.

The logotype straddles current and fresh with an infusion of retro nostalgia. 

Fun fact: The type designer who worked on the logotype with us is a contributing typeface designer at the foundry Sharp, which I am a huge fan of.

How about the colors? Why is yellow a prominent and important color for your brand?

Internally, we always considered ourselves a yellow brand, since our original logo used yellow. But in practice, we actually leaned pretty heavily on greens in the old palette. 

Going into the rebrand, we wanted to put a heavy emphasis on explorations that embraced yellow as a primary brand color. 

Yellow is super tricky. Contrast was definitely a point of close focus, given accessibility is a top priority across the work our design teams touch.

After countless hours of exploration, we landed on a shade that felt wholly cohesive with the brand and really distinct. 

That’s the benefit of using yellow; because it’s hard, not a lot of brands use it. 

We wanted to keep to a simple core palette, since that would help us continue to gain brand recognition. That said, we’re a friendly and approachable brand, and wanted to express that a little more when appropriate. 

We developed a broad, expressive palette built from the ground up with contrast and compliance in mind to do just that. 

What about your brand’s visual style? How did you land on a specific visual style?

The visual style is really rooted in the Journeys brand story. 

Much like Casper is “the Sleep Company” and not just a mattress brand, we’re not just an SMS marketing company. 

We enable connection and conversation and are building products for the future that expand far beyond text messaging. 

This idea of Journeys gave us room to play, especially in our illustration, with dream-like elements—almost Escher-like impossible scenes. 

Do you have any specific takeaways or learnings from this experience?

I’ve had the opportunity to do a few of these exercises in my career and this was by far the most rewarding and enriching. 

Firstly, buy-in is essential. There’s no world where you can be successful in any rebrand or refresh without thoughtfully including senior leadership in the process.

I’d also say, especially when working with an agency partner, don’t be afraid to drive. You are the person/team that needs to use the design system every day. A beautiful brand book that doesn’t actually represent a thoughtful, flexible system is not going to work.

Attentive has been building a platform to change how businesses interact with consumers - through personalized text message conversations and frictionless commerce experiences. 

Attentive will continue to deliver SMS marketing programs for e-commerce brands that drive a significant portion of the online revenue.

Discover the story behind Attentive's latest rebrand.

Discover Attentive's latest rebrand. 📲

Teodora Gavrilut, Chief Operating Officer at Creatopy, who talked about involving the whole team in their rebranding, their ‘Glow’ as a representation of that creative “Aha!” moment, and the challenges in defining a new brand.

Could you introduce us to Creatopy and its beginnings as Bannersnack?

The company we now call Creatopy is a SaaS that started out in 2008 in a small city in Transylvania under the name Bannersnack. It was founded by Romanian entrepreneur Gabriel Ciordas. 

The goal was to build a platform for web developers that creates online banners quickly and easily.

Bannersnack developed throughout the years, managing to help more than four million users and Fortune 500 companies make powerful designs for their advertising campaigns while also growing to become a bootstrapped company of more than a hundred employees.

However, by 2019, we came to the conclusion that the product was too small for our ambitions. That was how we decided to go through a full rebranding process, changing the name and the visual identity while upgrading our mission and vision statements.

What was the rebranding process like? Were there any challenges you experienced?

We enlisted the help of the team at Brandient, a mobile task force of multidisciplinary experts specializing in brand innovation in emerging markets and industries. 

A blend of two words, “creation/creativity” and “utopia,” the name stands for the concept of perfect creation and vast imaginary potential--the best place for creativity.

The brand was revealed internally in January 2020 in a brand engagement session with all employees. Soon after, we started working on the transition. However, in March 2020, Covid-19 was declared a pandemic, which meant our already complex rebranding process became more complicated. 

We shifted to remote work. We adapted as best as we could—here, the newly adopted SAFe agile framework came in handy. Still, I’m proud to say our team did a fantastic job, and soon, we set the deadline for the release of Creatopy into the world: February 8, 2021.

I also have a funny story to share here, a challenge if you will. Right after we decided on Creatopy’s identity, Figma revealed its rebranding, having the same typeface as we initially had—Whyte, from Swiss foundry Dinamo. 

I guess it’s a brand designer’s dream to let imagination run wild when working with design platforms. It’s still funny to me, in a very good way.  

In accordance with our new brand idea, which is creative empowerment, our new logo dramatizes the core concept of creativity with the help of a widely-used metaphor: the bright light or the Glow.

The logo, designed by Ciprian Robu, a Senior Designer at Brandient, encompasses three main elements: the C-monogram, which stands for Creatopy and creation; the Ideal—a sphere (utopia) and lastly, the Glow signifying idea, creativity, intelligence.

‘Creatopy’ is a blend of ‘creation/creativity’ and ‘utopia’.

The logo is flexible. It has a glowing gradient, shifting its color from the primary green-cyan gradient to the next-in-line hues in the color circle—blue to indigo, violet to magenta, red to orange, and orange to yellow, like the Northern Lights. 

The logo can also borrow colors from its surrounding elements, creating chromatic harmonies and demonstrating that the creative spark--or the Glow--can be found anywhere in nature.

The Glow, or the moment of inspiration, is our metaphor for the nature of creativity. With our cool esthetics and design minimalism, we aim to show glimpses of the visual magic and the great unknown.

We also adopted a new wordmark, the Ping typeface, which is both humanistic and geometrical. unlike other geometric typefaces, it doesn’t reject the influence of the human hand. Its simplified letterforms are constructed with the least number of pen strokes. Designed by the Dutch foundry Typotheque, Ping has received in 2019 the Gold European Design Award.

How did you land on the design style you call the ‘Glow Update’?

The Glow we are using represents the euphoria--or the “Aha!” moment of creativity, when your idea emerges--transposed into a key element of our design language. We used the Glow in contrast with a darker color palette to illustrate and show this effect.

 Altogether, we wanted to emphasize this bold, modern, shining style. 

We explored other initial creative directions, ranging from a more faded, geometrical style to a more playful, funky style to match the fun aspect of creating. However, as soon as we saw the ‘Glow’ approach, we knew from the start that it was the right fit for us.

It’s safe to say that this blurry, glowing style suits our communication and messages better and goes along with our new identity elements. 

Example: Dashboard UI with a vivid, clean layout.

We also tried to infuse this into other visual elements like illustrations and some UI elements, banners, and digital advertising, to go along with the general ‘Glow’ concept.

How do your company values reflect on Creatopy’s branding?

Our five values are the foundation of what we believe to be Creatopy’s organizational behavior, so I guess it’s safe to say that these are internal values we display so that people who want to join our organization know what we expect from them. 

Example of a landing page built with modular website components and color themes.

They are used throughout our internal communication regularly. everything we do internally and externally reflects these five values of ours. They are:

I belong to an A-team of beautiful minds and open hearts, allowing me to think sharp, to glow bright, and to stay agile.

I mean technology, which is pretty much self-explanatory, given that we are a tech product. We live and breathe tech.

I care about delivering the best customer experience. Our product couldn’t have gotten to where it is now without our customer-centric approach, which is an asset because we were paying attention to what our community wanted from the very beginning.

I create beautiful design is again, self-explanatory, for we are a tech product which is destined for creators and communicators.  

I love Oradea, our hometown—which is to say we get involved in the local community. We aim to make it grow and glow.

As soon as these values were announced, we used the new brand’s illustration design to display them all over our new office space, The Home of Glowing Ideas, which is Eastern Europe’s largest low-energy building.

What would you say is your biggest learning or takeaway from this rebranding?

The rebrand was a challenge from start to finish. However, if I were to pick the most complex part in the whole process, I’d have to go with the actual implementation, starting with the education and acceptance from the entire team. 

You have to make sure you’re conveying the same messages and understand all the layers to get people on board, from the inside out, to really build upon this identity and develop the messaging. 

It’s a tedious process because you need to make sure everyone knows and understands your brand’s mission, core values, and communication guidelines. 

A few examples of the modules and theme colors for the new website.

Designers need to embrace the same style, art direction, and stick to your systems, assets, and processes. 

What worked for us was organizing creative sessions with the entire design team, pushing the boundaries of the new brand. We worked especially hard on training the team and getting them to use the same system and implement the same rules.

In the words of our Head of Design, Gery Meleg, “Consistency is key. Rules are essential. Creativity is mandatory.”

We have big plans and dreams for Creatopy. We want to be the digital collaborative tool that empowers its users in every aspect of their creative process. Creativity is serious business. Creativity is boundless. 

Yet we’re all challenged in today’s world to explore our creativity when most of our time is spent on mundane, repetitive work. 

So it’s safe to say that addressing the burning question of the millennium and the mantra for future success for anybody—“How can we do more with less?”--is what we’re focusing on.

‘More’ usually doesn’t mean ‘better,’ and this is another essential part of our future development. Living in a cookieless world, where personalization and creative differentiation are critical, we’ll focus on understanding expectations, emotions, and future needs that ultimately drive that increased number of leads or conversions. 

Creatopy Illustration guidelines and artwork

Whether we’re talking about users being brand consistent, scaling or automating design tasks, or collaborating with all stakeholders, we want them to find in Creatopy the all-in-one, encompassing solution.

We’ll keep adding innovative solutions and cutting-edge technology so that our community of makers can see the added value Creatopy brings to the table.

Discover the story behind Creatopy's latest rebrand.

Sean McVey, the Chief Marketing Officer of Freethink, talks about improving brand perception and legibility, their ‘multimedia notebook’ theme, and finding the balance between ‘mild’ and ‘wild’.

Can you talk about how the publication and its initial branding come about?

Freethink was founded by a group of documentary filmmakers that wanted to build a different kind of news company. No politics. No gossip. No clickbait. 

Instead, they wanted to tell stories of people making a positive impact on the world--entrepreneurs, activists, engineers, artists, and anyone working to shape a better future. 

Our brand vision has always stemmed from the idea that we’re reporting news from the frontier of change. 

Whether you look at our previous identity or the new one, they both reflect that vibe--adventurous, a bit chaotic, slightly rebellious, and definitely not perfect. Building the future is messy, and so is our brand. 

"Previous Freethink identity--bold, adventurous and messy."

From a design standpoint, we’ve been lucky to have incredible talent, mostly in-house or in our close network. 

Our original mark, website, and design language were created by our CEO, Chandler Tuttle, who was a creative director in a previous career. 

Our current brand, website, and design language were created by two fantastic designers, Taylor Simpson and Ana Kova. 

Most of the Freethink team actually really liked (or loved) the previous identity. The wordmark, in particular, was around since the beginning and represented something special to those that started the company. 

However, we decided to rebrand to address a few specific challenges. One was that we needed to be perceived as “news.” Freethink has a culture of being different and standing out from the crowd. And so historically, we leaned into being as unique as possible. 

The bright pink hand-drawn work mark is a good example.

But what we concluded from user research is that most people didn’t know what we were at first glance. It wasn’t obvious to people that we were a modern digital publisher like Axios, Vox, or Wired. 

Our conclusion is that we had to fit in before we could stand out. This was a theme throughout the rebrand. 

The other reason was more tactical: legibility. At small sizes, (think Apple News on mobile) nobody could read our name. What good is a brand impression if you can’t read it? So this was another focus throughout the process.

Was there any hesitation on the rebrand? Sure. I’d say a healthy amount from a few folks in the company. But overall, people trusted us just like we trust them to do what they do. 

Tell us about the rebranding process. How did you go about it?

We started out by getting 3 or 4 pitches from agencies and quickly realized that approach wasn’t going to work for us. 

The feeling on our team was that this undertaking was going to take time and a ton of exploration. And frankly, we didn’t want an agency rushing us through revisions and hounding us about hours.

"New Freethink identity--bold, adventurous, messy, legible and newsy"

There is nothing worse than putting out a product that isn’t your best just because of a made-up deadline. Fortunately, everyone on our team got this and embraced the exploration process.  

The team we put together for the rebrand and website design was intentionally small, but diverse in skillset. Everyone was in-house with the exception of Taylor Simpson, our Identity Designer.

For this project, our UX Designer & Illustrator is our now-Art Director, Ana Kova. Chandler and I also worked on this project as well as our Director of Community, Emily Cullinan, Engagement Editor, Jana Roose, Creative Strategist, Clifford Usher, Motion Designer, James Heredia, and Motion Designer, Vicky Chao.

We’d meet as a group once per week to explore, debate, and discuss what felt right and what felt like us as a brand. This process went on for months. Some ideas were mild and safe, others were crazy and uncomfortable. 

"Instagram has been a testing ground as we push the design language even further. Ana and Emily try new ideas every day."

It was important for us to cross that line of “oh that’s too crazy, even for Freethink.” We had to make sure to pull back on the craziness and not let it get too wild. At the end of the day, we needed to create a perception of a credible news brand.

The one thing that stood out to me in the process was how long it took. Everyone on the team had a voice and it was important for us to all feel good about the big decisions. 

This approach of course took longer than having one person call the shots. But I think we all agree it was worth the wait to get that team alignment.

You mentioned that the idea behind your rebranding is “multimedia notebook”. Can you talk more about that?

Our CEO Chandler often talks about how building the future is really messy. 

We tell stories of startups all the time that are breaking things, failing, pivoting, and then moving on to the next stage. Innovation is hard and certainly doesn’t happen in a straight line.

"Pull quotes are a major part of the multimedia notebook feel"

One way to visualize this kind of spirit is to use the elements of a notebook--the kind you carry around so you don’t forget ideas. Notebooks like this have highlights, mark-up, circled information, underlines, and messy borders.

"Multimedia notebook style applied to homepage content"

We wanted to create the digital version of that, mixing those notebook elements with interesting typography. On our site, you’ll find hand-drawn notes in addition to fonts like Archivo, Happy Times, Utopia, and Jetbrains Mono. 

This style is not only distinctive, but also functional. We use the markup elements all of the time in our editorial content. 

For another example of the multimedia notebook in action, check out our Freethink eBook on Documentary Storytelling. This is the first big asset our Identity Designer, Taylor, created using the new brand language. 

Your logo has also changed. What is the meaning or story behind it?

We designed our wordmark from scratch with the primary design challenge being legibility across platforms and devices. 

We kept hand-drawn elements, including the Freethink asterisk (a symbol we used in our old system), to maintain that fun, scrappy feeling. But especially at small sizes, designing for reliability was a huge win for us. 

"As a video company, it was important for the mark to work well in animation."

There were many debates on how “mild” or “wild” we should look. But ultimately I think we found a perfect balance. 

Having an easy-to-remember icon is important for a publisher, especially since we have large social media audiences.

Previously, our icon was simply an asterisk. We evolved our icon to the F* which we feel is more ownable and works well in animation.

How is Freethink’s new look now more aligned with its values, voice, and mission?

Our mission is to reimagine the news for a generation that’s changing the world. And we do this through great content--short documentaries and articles. 

In many ways, our brand is our content. The thumbnail artwork and video packaging represent our brand voice day in and day out, and seeing our new identity reflected in our editorial content has been very rewarding.

"Thumbnail artwork for videos and articles both sell the story and reflect the brand"

One unique thing about being a digital publisher is that your design work needs to shine at a brand level, but also perform well. 

"Custom illustration and minimalist photography are both key components of the brand. Luckily our Art Director Ana is a world-class illustrator and web designer."

If people don’t click on our videos and articles, we can’t complete our mission. Finding that balance of refined design vs. clickable news has been a fun challenge, and so far the content being published in our new brand has been performing better than ever. 

We love your slogan, ‘Move the World’! How did it come about?

Our creative strategist, Clifford, came up with this tagline and it captures everything we hoped to express in a few words. 

When he and I joined Freethink initially, we interviewed everyone that worked here and flushed out pages and pages of words, phrases, and what you could consider to be the DNA of our culture. 

In fact, here is an old slide of some of those phrases:

Clifford comes from the music and arts world. He has a knack for lyrics and naming things (ie band names, albums, song titles). And so he put his skill to use for our tagline and ‘Move the World’ just clicked. 

Lastly, what has been the reaction to your rebranding?

I had some amount of fear going into the launch, especially since the previous brand meant a lot to the original Freethink team. 

But fortunately, we have a very supportive family here and people were definitely energized. The brand was so much more than a logo and I think people embraced the new design language, website, and video elements. 

We got good feedback from our community and it definitely felt like we landed this one (you know when you don’t). The team was very pleased with where things ended up and we’re excited to continue building on top of our new foundation. 

Discover the story behind Freethink's latest rebrand.

Discover the story behind Freethink's rebrand. ✍️

Kelly Finnerty, Director of Brand and Content at Startpage, talked about how comments from fans helped spur their brand refresh, the elements they knew they needed to change, and going with your gut when it comes to final decisions.

Could you introduce us to Startpage and its initial branding?

I joined Startpage in 2019, so I can only share its brand history second-hand. 

What I do know is that the original branding strove to differentiate our private search engine with the “picture-perfect” styling of notorious “Big Tech” brands who spy on and track people. This is apparent in the previous brand identity’s use of hand-drawn illustrations and frilly fonts. 

Regarding the brand colors, which we’ve largely maintained, it shows that Startpage is not your traditional tech brand. 

The vibrant “Startpage Blue” signals a clear line drawn between privacy-respecting tech and the primary blue used by invasive Big Tech brands like IBM, Microsoft Bing, Cisco, and Facebook. 

What prompted this rebranding? When did the conversations about changing the visual identity start?

There were multiple moments where the entire team was questioning the branding. 

From comments from fans on social complaining that our icon had nothing to do with search, to internal concerns that some of our illustrations were “creepy,” we knew change was necessary, but we wanted to make informed improvements.

Brand change is complicated. It requires a lot of time, energy, and money.

Not only does such an effort include in-depth strategy, research, design, and development work, but even more significantly, the process demands an extensive team and loyal user consensus. 

To ensure that we were making the right decision, we performed market research, polled loyal users and I solicited opinions from my professional network and even family about Startpage’s brand visuals and messaging.

By doing this research, we uncovered qualified data revealing that people found the current branding dated and unclear. 

When a user sees the Startpage blue border around their window when privately browsing with our proxy Anonymous View, they know they are safe. 

How did you decide which elements of the previous brand needed to change, and which elements could / must stay?

We decided to proceed with a brand refresh versus a rebrand. 

I felt confident that Startpage’s existing brand ethos, audience, and core values continued to be firmly rooted. Meaning the desired change was more about making the brand visuals better connect with our purpose.

Startpage's new icon and illustration style.

The new icon instantly depicts our core offering of private search while incorporating our core brand colors and swoosh. The evolved illustration involves a more elegantly hand-drawn style and a new pixelation theme across all visuals to express how anonymous a person is when searching on Startpage.

We carry these throughout our new illustrations used throughout our new site design and into treatments in photography that we will be using on our blog and across social media.

Tell us more about the process. Was the process smooth, or were there pitfalls?

There were so many iterations on the tiniest of details throughout our brand refresh process. 

One specifically nuanced conversation was around the shape of the swoosh underling “Start” in our logo. 

Our incredibly talented and patient Director of Design, Mary, did an amazing job putting together multiple options of differentiated swooshes. 

They were truly all so similar, but the one we chose at the end still feels just right.

How did your logo’s redesign come about? What about the typeface?

The new, refreshed logo has an updated swoosh underlining “Start” to reinforce key brand messaging of “Start your search with Startpage.”

Previously, the brand lacked a tie-in to its name. The new typeface created by Dutch designer Jeroen van Eerden is digital-first with distinct disappearing t’s to represent how Startpage anonymizes search online.

We wanted something that was distinct and distinguishable as Startpage versus one that any brand could buy online.

That said, the typeface is still easy to read and modern.

What would you say was the biggest thing you learned from this experience of rebranding Startpage?

When we landed on the new branding, it just felt right. It truly did. Even today, when I see the logo on our homepage, it feels like it’s been our one and only logo.

Therefore, my takeaway is to pay attention to the data and listen to all of the feedback—but trust your gut feeling for your final decision.

Startpage’s innovative team is launching more and more privacy-respecting search features.

This year we released, Private Shopping, Currency Conversion, Stock and Crypto Info, and Language Translation. 

Later this year we have Private Hotel search coming up as well as a major, game-changing new product, that I can’t quite yet talk about. Stay tuned by following us on Twitter and Instagram!

Discover the story behind Startpage's latest rebrand.

Lindie Gerber, Executive Creative Director at Movable Ink, talked about Movable Ink's brand evolution, how they use magenta as a powerful differentiator, and the five-year-long process of evolving their brand.

Can you introduce us to Movable Ink and the story behind its initial branding?

Movable Ink was founded in 2010 by Vivek Sharma and Michael Nutt when they recognised the need for email to be a more dynamic and relevant communication channel for marketers and consumers.

We were intentional with standing out from all others in the martech brandscape by being approachable and fun all while remaining innovative and creative. 

This dedication to our brand attributes set the foundation for our brand as a whole and is reflected in our initial logo with the use of a sans serif type combined with a magenta inkblot as a symbol. 

When our founders assessed the landscape of email, it was revealed that email service providers were mainly geared toward the infrastructure and data side of email marketing. But, customers don’t experience data, they experience content. And as a result, exposing the need for personalized content as a focus.

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