Introducing Teamwork.com’s new brand

Hi! I’m Leanne. I’m the Corporate Marketing Manager here at Teamwork.com, and I’ve been with the company for almost 5 years now. I’ve been heading up our rebrand project since back when it was just a hopeful glint in my eye (i.e. March 2018), and today I wanted to take over the blog to share some insights about the whys, whats, and (w)hows of our new look. We know that words like “rebrand” or “brand refresh” can often feel a little overwhelming, so right from the outset, we want to highlight that our products and how you use them haven’t changed. So what has changed, and why? Let’s get stuck in.

Why did we rebrand?

If you’ve ever been involved in a rebrand (maybe you’ve even used Teamwork.com to coordinate it, like we did!), you’ll know that it’s not a decision that’s made lightly. There’s no right time to start, but the reasons to do it keep stacking up until they start to outweigh the reasons not to. For us, the primary reasons to rebrand were:

1. So we could stay laser-focused on our goal of creating a product suite that helps teams work together;

2. To create a visual identity that could support this product suite as we grow;

3. And to ensure we could deliver a consistent, cohesive Teamwork experience no matter where in the world it’s coming from (or going to).

1) Keeping our eyes on the prize

Teamwork has always been the inspiration behind what we do. (It’s why we bought the domain name back in 2014.) We believe that at its core, great teamwork comes down to one thing: working together, beautifully. And every day, we’re lucky enough to witness teams of all different sizes, industries, and dynamics do just that. They achieve amazing things by communicating openly, collaborating wholeheartedly, and keeping themselves accountable. Our goal as a business has always been to foster this by freeing the talent in teams so they can focus on the productive and brilliant. Our new brand allows us to stay more focused than ever on this goal, so we can proudly and confidently declare it (to our customers, on our website, at parties, etc).

2) Creating a cohesive visual identity

As we evolved, we wanted to have a consistent design voice that would be able to support our ambition to build a suite of software that helps teams to get more done and run their businesses. Our previous brand served us well, but it hadn’t been designed with this suite thinking in mind; as a result, we found it struggled when it came to scalability and making it work across multiple products. So we decided this was a good time to think about what we really wanted Teamwork.com to look and feel like. We wanted to create something that would highlight what we like to think are our best characteristics: uncomplicated, fun, and enjoyable to interact with.

3) Delivering a consistent experience

We’ve grown from being just a few developers in a tiny office to 240 staff in six countries around the world. But we always want to stay true to who we are and what we set out to be. Having a strong brand allows us to take the things that make us tick — like our fanaticism for great customer support and our focus on treating software like a craft — and use them to make sure we scale our company in the right ways. It lets us keep the essential bits at the heart of the Teamwork.com experience. Now, no matter who you talk to on our team, and no matter where in the world they might be, you’re always guaranteed to have that unique Teamwork.com experience.

Creating our visual identity

This part of the process was equal parts terrifying and exciting. When it comes to changing something people are used to, you have to tread carefully — and make sure that any changes you make are being made for the right reasons.

The Teamwork.com logo

Before we jump headfirst into revealing our new logo, we’re going to take some inspiration from Japanese organizing consultant Marie Kondo and say thank you.

Marie believes that before throwing something out (or in our case, moving on from something), you should say thank you to it for the joy it brought you. Our old identity has been a champion, and we’ve had some amazing moments under it. It’s been present for our most significant milestones: from the domain name purchase, to hiring our team, to building new products, to opening offices in new countries, to attracting and working with our wonderful customers. It’s brought us together. And we’ve had lots of laughs, learnings, and friendships along the way. So, to our old identity: thank you! We couldn’t have done this without you.

Introducing our new Teamwork.com logo

We’re delighted to introduce our new logo, and we can’t wait to make even more memories under it. We wanted to create a confident and approachable brand, underpinned by simplicity. We believe in our products. Going forward, we want to make Teamwork.com the only suite of products that businesses need. Period. With our new logo, we wanted to go for something bright, simple, and playful. To us, the dot represents that spark of ingenuity, the idea, the team, the business, the hint of rogueishness that makes Teamwork.com (and Teamworkers) that little bit different.

Our product logos

Designing a product logo was much easier when we were one product! But those days are long behind us; our vision is to create a suite of software that can run any business. This was at the forefront of our minds when we started developing logos for our product suite. We wanted to consider what we have now, but also how it would all tie together for future products. So we took the visual language of the dot and carried it right through our product logo design. Each logo has been given its own unique identity, but the dot ties them all back together.

Our new font

We wanted our font to be simple but playful. We think our new typeface, Fakt (why yes, it is difficult to say in an Irish accent), beautifully represents our new brand’s emphasis on simplicity and approachability. And it looks really nice, too.

Our color palette

We want every interaction with Teamwork.com to be a joy, so we gravitated towards colors that are vibrant, delightful, and uplifting. We also noticed that most business management brands were built around the same dull tones — and we wanted to take the opportunity to do things a little differently.

A brand new era for Teamwork.com

You’ll notice the new changes in effect from today. Currently, our website is the biggest visual change, but you’ll also see that within the products, the default color and logos (in the header, on the loading screens and in the product dropdown) have been updated. This is just the beginning for our new brand. We’re excited to have it to guide us as we build new products, reach new milestones, and continue to grow. To our customers who embrace our products and bring the Teamwork.com ethos to life: thank you for being part of our journey, and for letting us be a part of yours. We hope you’re as excited by this change as we are. We’d love to hear your feedback in the comments below. (Psst…want an even more in-depth look at our design process? Check out this Medium post from the Creative Director of our rebrand project.)