Our Brand Refresh Journey: Finding Our Look and Feel
Yen our UI Designer, explains how we found a design which expressed Thankyou Payroll’s identity and was unique to the world of payroll.
Welcome back. It’s the penultimate blog in our refresh series. If you’re new to this series, make sure to check out the first three, over on our blog!
With just a few more days until we reveal our new look and feel to you, we thought we’d give you some insight into what went into the designing phase of our refresh project.
This stage was the most exciting part for many of us because we finally got to see the ideas on paper brought to life.
Here’s Yen, our UI Designer, with the inside scoop.
Yen Cheung, UI Designer at Thankyou Payroll
Our identity, in design
After we had landed on the essence of what we wanted our brand to say, my design eye was itching to see how this could be expressed to our customers.
We needed to reflect the same sense of connection, compassion, expertise, and professionalism embedded in our identity, in the way we presented ourselves to you.
There were a few key obstacles standing in our way to get to this point…
Balancing ‘relaxed’ with ‘professional‘
A big challenge we faced was finding the voice of Thankyou Payroll. We needed to find the perfect balance between making you feel relaxed and displaying professionalism. We look after your money and we don’t want you to think we take that responsibility lightly, but we also want you to know that there are real people behind what we do who have your back.
The colour of Thankyou Payroll
From the very beginning, we knew we wanted to be bold, colourful and out of the box – because that’s who we are and who we have been for the last 13 years. The finance space is a very “blue” space – as this colour conveys trust and reliability. Our challenge was in finding a look that didn’t stray away from these connotations but which still had its own unique place in the world of payroll.
Connecting with you
Forming meaningful, long-term relationships with our customers is a big part of who we are. We wanted to bring this to the forefront, showcasing the amazing people who put the purpose in our payroll service. We wanted to tell this story through our logo too – so that it meant more than just words on paper.
Handing over the design brief
The obstacles we had identified, became the basis of our design brief…
Clear communication,
impactful design,
human connection.
To translate this into our new look and feel, we worked with Studio Acht – a group of talented kiwi designers doing ‘good design for good people’.
Studio Acht took this brief with two hands and hit the ground running, coming back to us with several variations of how our new look and feel could take hold.
Many prototypes and collaborative discussions later, we couldn’t be happier with the end result. We hope you love it too. We’ll give you the full rundown of our new visual elements in another blog next week.
I can’t wait to show you how our new look and feel will be incorporated into all of your experiences with Thankyou Payroll. Rest assured, there will be lots of good things happening in the weeks and months to come.
Tune in tomorrow for our final blog in our refresh series – getting our new identity, look, and feel ready for you.