Since our product conception, it has undergone a massive evolution. Rocket.Chat went beyond the messaging world, becoming a truly versatile platform able to support the entire customer relationship experience and cross-company communications, considered by Capterra's users one of the best remote work platforms in 2020.
Having evolved into such a comprehensive platform, renewing our brand seemed the next logical step to reflect our values better. We’re pleased to announce that we’re exploring a brand refresh in 2020. Not to worry: we’re revamping the brand identity, nothing extreme. This post will delve a little more into the upcoming refresh and our new brand experience.
Similar, but more refined
Refreshing our brand is an important step to reflect Rocket.Chat’s evolution into a more mature company. We help all kinds of companies to create a bigger picture with increasingly robust projects. On the other hand, we’re ready to expand our business in the corporate world while preserving our values and what made us different from others in the industry: our loyal contributors, which happens to be the largest community in GitHub.
How could Rocket.Chat’s visual identity fit in this new playing field?
To guarantee our success, we partnered with the renowned designer Thiago Cruz, the talented brand strategist Marcelo Manha, and the contemporary marketing agency Fastdezine, everyone with a proven record in successful brand projects. All to build a fluid and universally visual brand experience for Rocketeers. We started with the logo.
RocketScience creates magic
It’s impossible to dissociate a brand from its purpose. That’s why among different brand techniques, we chose Simon Sinek's Golden Circle to reflect on our brand’s value proposition. This innovative approach led us to answer questions such as what, how, and why we do what we do at Rocket.Chat.
This is how Rocket.Chat's Golden Circle looks like:
We also dove into brand personas and how to relate them to our audience. We asked ourselves: "If we had to personify our brand, what would that person be like?". To answer that, we dove into our mission, values, and customer interviews, finding two primary brand personas: the creator (rational) and the magician (emotional).
Blending the creator’s analytical and collaborative mindset with the magician’s evolutive and spontaneous personality creates a new world full of possibilities. That’s where “RocketScience creates magic” comes into the picture. The brand slogan couldn’t represent us better.
“Rocket.Chat has its lingo, codes, but instead of complicating and excluding, it can bring people closer. Born to be the best messenger tool in the world, we became catalysts of true collaboration.”
Gabriel EngelFounder & CEO of Rocket.Chat
Say hello to our pixel-perfect new design elements
People can be very passionate about brands & logos. We’ve seen that first hand, especially with the rocket symbol within Rocket.Chat’s logo. We understand why. Since day one, the rocket symbolizes our communication mission: making it easier and universal for people to communicate and accomplish tasks.
Like rockets, what makes our platform powerful is what goes on behind the scenes: hard work and technology. That’s why the rocket is still prominent in our newest logo.
The logo: the rocket headed for the stars
With subtle changes, the logo had its color unified and its typography was redesigned for readability. Here you can see how our logo has changed since Rocket.Chat’s early days:
As for our color palette, we kept it intact. You’ll see more blue and coral in our visuals, though: if combined, these colors have a contrast that symbolizes being sophisticated and technological. Also, we’ve added new graphic elements to strengthen Rocket.Chat’s brand image.
Pixels
Did you know that pixels are the smallest but most crucial element to create a fundamental component? Choosing pixels as a graphic element was unanimous, because like pixels, Rocket.Chat enables people to build all sorts of things from scratch.
Iconography
Icons are a powerful way to portray brands at a glance. We wanted our icons to represent how moving between the physical and the digital world is easier with a platform like Rocket.Chat. Therefore, they are simple, functional, yet digital.
Patterns
To refresh the brand’s patterns, sequences of pixels within modular grids were created. They will be illustrating the user experience’s touchpoints, like these.
Over the next months, you’ll see more of these elements inside our website, social media posts, and so on. We hope all of these will strengthen the movement Rocket.Chat has created: empowering people and companies to communicate better and limitlessly.
Last but no least: Join our first-ever t-shirt design contest!
A wise uncle once said that with great brands come great t-shirts. That’s why we’ve decided to create a public contest so everyone can help us design our new official t-shirt! The contest will happen via 99designs and will last for 7 days live on the platform. Read on to find out how to participate!
When?
From October 22nd to 29th: The competition will be set live at 99designs.com.
October 30th: Rocket.Chat will announce the Top4 Designs internally elected.
From October 30th to November 6th: Public Voting Starts. Social Media Followers will decide who the winner is.
November 6th: Winner Announcement in all social media profiles and email.
Who can participate?
Anyone is welcome to participate. Note that you'll be required to create an account on 99designs to submit your design.
How is the winner going to be chosen?
Rocket.Chat's internal team will select the top 4 designs received via 99designs and share in their social media platforms with the community. Public polls will be created on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin and users will be invited to vote on their favorite designs. The design that receives the majority of votes on both Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter official posts will be considered the winner.
What is the award for the winner?
The winner design will be available for purchase for an undetermined time at Rocket.Chat's Gift Shop , the T-Shirt will be worn by the community and product team and he receive an award of USD 300, paid through 99designs.
How can you participate?
We'll send the invite to participate via email and social media profiles on October 22nd, so please make sure to:
1) Subscribe to our newsletter to be notified about the contest;
2) Follow us on Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook. Besides of publishing the competition URL we'll also be running the polls for followers to vote on their favorite designs :)
Where can I find details about the New Brand Style?
We look forward to having you in our contest!
NOTE: The competition will take place in 99designs, the platform has some limitations but we guarantee that the competition will be extended to 7 days of application and the reward for the winner will be of minimum of $300 USD.
