Company: upcoach

Title: Brand Designer

Timeline: 2-3 months (August 2022 - November 2022)

Hours: Full-time

Company size: Small team, up to 10 people

Team size: Designer (me) + Head of Marketing

Location: Remote (US, Turkey, Serbia, Albania)

About Platform: upcoach is a coaching platform that enables professional coaches to build and manage their programs with Courses, Habits, Chats, Meetings, Tasks, and sharing Smart Docs and Files. It helps coaches deliver the best possible experience to their clients and scale their impact. Coaches can quickly create programs, track client progress, encourage engagement, schedule meetings, and communicate effortlessly - all using a no-code platform.

Target Audience: Professional Coaches (1-1, Group and Cohort coaching) / Mainly US Market

The primary goal of bringing a Full-Stack Designer on board in 2022 was to collaborate with the Marketing team on redefining the visual language and leading the overall rebranding effort.

Objectives:

Rebranding and creation of a Brand Book

Implementing the new visual language across all digital assets and stationery

Redesigning the website and implementing it in WordPress

When I joined upcoach in August 2022, I encountered a visual mess with no clear brand guide and an excessive number of custom styles on the website. The main graphic element, the "blob," failed to effectively convey the brand's value of transformation. The color palette had too many conflicting hues that clashed with the primary black and white, creating a childish appearance instead of a modern look. Also, the logotype itself appeared outdated.

My initial goal was to consolidate everything into a proper Brand Book, as we only had a brief PowerPoint presentation acting as an improvised brand guide.

At this stage, I focused on two key issues:

First, I questioned the use of the "blob" graphic element, as I believed we could represent the concept of 'transformation' in a less banal way.

Second, I revisited the color palette, aiming to reduce the number of secondary colors and establish clearer guidelines for their usage.

Despite refining the current brand styles and using it for a while, the previously mentioned visual issues with colors and logo shape still resided. After several discussions with the team, we decided to move forward with a complete redesign of upcoach.

I structured the rebranding process into four stages, using Helder as a reference:

The main goals were to better communicate the brand's core values and symbols:

Value of Transformation: Conveyed through typography rather than the fluid "blob" element.

Motive of Blocks: Squares and rectangles became the primary graphic elements, reflecting the building blocks of the upcoach program builder.

Changed Color Palette: Simplified to evoke trust, growth, and a modern, clean aesthetic through effective color combinations.