ActiveCampaign Brand Refresh
Team
Valerie Craig, Kelly Knaga, Garrett Karol, Anna Banazask, Y (Shashi) Pham
My role
Brand Identity, brand guidelines, design system, social ads, website, prototype, illustrations, animation, environmental, art direction, templates, presentation & more.
ActiveCampaign is a cloud software platform based in Chicago, IL. The company offers software for customer experience automation. Our in-house team has been working on a brand refresh since late 2022. We are slowly rolling things out one thing at a time. So far we had given new life to our colour palette, icons, and illustration style. More details to come soon, but here’s a sneak peek of what we have recently rolled out.
Brand Guidelines
Brand Design site is launched.
More to come soon. Phase 2 of our Brand Design site is in the works!
I worked directly on the Brand Guidelines, from conceiving, outlining the structure to execution. I began the process with doing a thorough audit of all our brand elements, organize per each brand element category and come up with guidelines for all the brand elements. To view the Brand more in depth, check out our Brand Guidelines below 👇
Color Palette
The brand’s previous color palette consisted of 4 colors: AC Blue and Dusk being primary colors, while Mint and Coral were secondary colors.
Our refreshed Primary palette will keep AC Blue and Dusk while also adding Midnight and Cream to add a level of sophistication, elegance and stability. Our new secondary colors will help bring warmth and contrast to our primary colors, while simultaneously bringing energy, sophistication and joy. Our new accent colors bring a sense of whimsy and playfulness. They create strong contrasts and will be used as pop colors only. For each color (except for accent colors), we created 10 tints ranging from the most saturated to the least saturated in color, forming a versatile and cohesive color system that can be applied on different platforms for both brand and product.
Previous color palette
Refreshed color palette: dividing in 3 tiers - primary, secondary & accent colors
Illustrations
We have updated and refined our illustration style to have a more sophisticated aesthetic yet still playful and fun to look at.
There are 3 different types of illustrations in our library: Abstract, conceptual, photography & illo.
Previous art direction
This previous direction was from created before I joined the team. This style features a bulky and somewhat unrefined human cartoon illustrations while also using the old color palette, resulting in a very cold and stocky feeling to it. And our team wanted to move away from this direction.
New direction
In our new art direction, we want to humanize our brand and adding more sophistication but still retaining the whimsical and fun side to it. The new illustration styles are broken into 3 different categories: Abstract, Conceptual, and Hybrid (combination of photography & spot illustration).
Style 1: Abstract geometric shapes
This style is usually used for internal presentations
Style 2: Conceptual illustration
Usually used in empty states in product, or for blog headers on site, and other internally used assets.
Style 3: Illustration & photography
This style is used primarily in external brand touch points: website, social media, events
A collage of images that follows style 3, which is the only style that is featured on our current website
Iconography
The refreshed iconography set is more simplified and sophisticated. While still keeping AC Blue as the main color, I’ve added Midnight to act as a pop color and to enhance the contrast.
Previous style
This style was created by the Brand team before a few years prior. The style over the years had become outdated, and has too many details that makes it look busy
New style
These are the updated icons that I’ve conceptually conceived and executed into a new style. By simplifying the details and adding Midnight, the icons are more
Photography
Our new art direction style is warm and approachable. We want to show people smiling and candid, never forced or posed. Lifestyle and studio shots are both acceptable but avoid busy backgrounds. When possible choose images with warmer palettes or backgrounds to balance our cooler brand palette.
Pattern style
The brand has previously not have any patterns, except for occasionally dotted pattern that were used on site and social assets. So our team decide to have patterns for the brand.
I worked on creating and defining the style of the pattern. There are 2 styles of pattern: Abstract tiles and geometric shapes. Our pattern will only be applied on layouts that are light in copy (or contains no copy at all). Patterns can be used in (but not exclusively): Social media posts, blog post, webinar post, presentation decks, or sometimes in environmental booth.
Automation style
Automation is the back bone of our company. ActiveCampaign has always prized on being an automation first company. However the automation illustration style for Brand & Marketing platform was looking outdated and inconsistent. I was tasked with giving our automation a complete ✨new look ✨
After 3 rounds of exploration, 22 different design solutions, and a deep research analysis on our competitors' automations for a new and enhanced look of AC marketing automations, we’ve landed on left-centered automation. I have also tested left-aligned automation and saw that it has a lot of benefits to our brand identity. Establishing a new style with a cleaner look that is more legible and versatile, and it makes automation more accessible to users. Left-aligned text is easier to read and scan, and it creates a more streamlined and organized look.
Old automation style
Center-aligned automation creates awkward spacing between each automation nodes and makes it harder to read. When being combined with photography, this automation style competes with the image and creates awkward composition, plus having users scanning automation info in a zic zac way is also distracting and not the best practice.
Exploration process
I first started with a competitive audit on Mailchimp, Klaviyo and other automation software.
After 3 rounds of exploration, 22 different design solutions, and a deep research analysis on our competitors' automations for a new and enhanced look of AC marketing automations, we’ve landed on left-centered automation. I have also tested left-aligned automation and saw that it has a lot of benefits to our brand identity.
New automation style ✨
Switching from center-aligned to left-aligned for better legibility and reduce text clunkiness of each automation node.
Yes/No have also been updated
New automation in layout
With a new and improved visual design, automation is now cleaner looking, easier to scan info thanks to the left-alignment. It has better legibility and reduce text clunkiness of each automation node.
Yes/No have also been updated to pill shaped in order to respond with localization.
Before
After
Website
In 2024, we launched new design for the website. I’ve worked on the Design System as well as creating graphics and visuals for the website.
Click here to view the website project in more depth.
AI branding for Product & Marketing
ChatGPT and AI in general had changed the work landscape in tech forever. Our company has also integrated with AI to further accommodate user’s needs and to enhance product’s workflow.
In 2024, I led the AI brand identity for our Product as well as defining the visual guidelines for AI features in Marketing and Brand assets/applications. Above are a few instances where AI is seen on Brand/Marketing assets and as also seen in Product application.