Recurly Brand Refresh
Role
Team
Lead Visual Designer
Visual Design Manager
Kristina Le
Ian Mintz
Bekka Reese
Diego Vilela
Jesica Zarco
In late 2020, the Brand Design team was tasked with refreshing the visual expression of Recurly’s brand to align with new enterprise positioning.
Since the initial launch of the refresh in 2021, the team has continued to evolve the visual language. We developed the use of photography and representation of the product. We extended the system to align with messaging and positioning changes. Finally, we applied best practices and learnings from those updates to improve creative performance.
Our first task was to conduct a brand audit. The foundation was strong, but the brand attributes were undefined. Changes over time had resulted in less than cohesive content. Once we’d established new attributes, we set out to redefine the look and feel of Recurly. It was important that our work express the brand with confidence, clarity, and purpose.
We identified gaps in the design system. Motion design wasn’t defined at all. Existing content was combed through for inconsistencies and opportunities for improvement. We prioritized areas that needed updates desperately, and added others to a phased rollout of refreshed materials.
The Brand Design team was able to lay the groundwork for a motion design system with the introduction of new growth-focused positioning. We produced an explainer video that employs the principles that were established. Later, we successfully launched a brand hub complete with digital brand guidelines that encompass motion design, photography, illustration, and a library of assets for all Recurly employees to use.
When it came to visual representation, we strategically used photography to showcase our customers or combined it with product UI to demonstrate concepts and provide context to features. By cropping in tightly on interface components, we created a more engaging and simplified visual language that focused on specific and understandable messages.
Our team also simplified and abstracted our iconography and spot illustration styles for more flexibility.
The brand’s updated color palette feels more modern, bright, and bold. Recurly’s iconic purple color was maintained but made more vibrant for a fresh new look. The mint and teal colors were adjusted to align with the new brand attributes, replacing similar shades from the previous palette. In addition, orange was introduced to add warmth and emphasis to an otherwise cool group of colors.
The decision was made to maintain most of the typography while simplifying the family of fonts used. As part of this process, the condensed version of the primary typeface, as well as a secondary display typeface, were removed. The weight of the type used for headlines and display was increased to give more life to the design without needing to change all applications. Additionally, a typographic scale for digital use was established.
