The decision to update and streamline Workana’s design aesthetic, which had been growing more or less organically for years, started a months-long process of discussions, brainstorming and gathering feedback from all the stakeholders.

That being said, the rebranding process is difficult and extensive (especially when the same team is also working on daily design tasks for the platform), and it takes trial and error to achieve the best result possible.

To better understand the rebranding process and gain insights on how companies could undertake a visual makeover, Workana’s Pablo Scillia and Augustin Boaretto detail their experiences here.

What is the most important part of the process?

Boaretto: Consistency, simplification and clarity. These are the fundamental factors that need constant review. The visual communication solution should always abide by these design pillars. While they are not a guarantee of success, these pillars can tell us that we are on the right track.

How do you involve the work team in the rebranding process?

Scillia: We had to include practically everyone in the company so they could understand the direction we wanted to take, starting with the chief executive officers, product owners and project managers. Including the content team was a fundamental step in order to create blueprints of how we wanted to approach the user during rebranding and how we wanted to reach them through our new style and communication tone.

We also included the development team from the start so they would understand the magnitude of the process, how it would impact Workana’s development and how much time it could take.

Finally, we brought in all the members from the rest of the teams for feedback on how this would impact their areas. Keeping everyone aiming toward one specific object is fundamental in a project of this size that will impact the whole brand, especially with teams like growth and marketing that constantly work with the identity, in order for everyone to start articulating these new ideas in their work.

What kind of specialists should be included for it to be a successful process?

Boaretto: One designer can move mountains on a rebranding project, although I think having a creative duo is necessary for an extra set of eyes to look over initial ideas and have another point of view. Two would be the minimum number of people required for a design team for a project of this type. Workana’s design team had four members who were trained in graphic design and visual communication, covering visual design, web interface design, web layout and illustration.

In terms of maximum, I think it depends more on the reach of the company looking to improve its visual system. In terms of the professionals involved, visual designers, user interface/user experience (UX) designers, writers, UX writers, advertising executives, communications specialists, illustrators, graphic designers specialised in branding and more professionals can take part in the process.

Does it take a lot of time?

Boaretto: The entire rebranding process can take a long time. It depends on different factors such as how ambitious the improvement project is how many areas the visual system must cover. In our case, it took about eight months from the time we started planning to the time it became a reality.

What was the biggest challenge? What should people be prepared for?

Scillia: The biggest difficulty was finding the right tone for the message we wanted to send and the parameters we had to operate within. Once we understood the principles of the objectives as a team, implementing the changes became relatively easy thanks to the collaboration with the design and front-end teams.

We learnt that a lot of unforeseen obstacles or little details that can affect more than one may think can come up. So, having the right team aligned with the objectives and understanding the project’s framework is imperative when it is time to make decisions quickly and implement them effectively.

It is also important to understand that a brand should constantly be changing instead of waiting until it is absolutely necessary to completely update the image.

Boaretto: The biggest challenge is to achieve simplification, visual neatness and consistency in designing interfaces without compromising the platform’s features. Sometimes it was by a stroke of luck of “inverse architecture”, where we had to adapt ourselves to the limitations of the pre-existing functionality.

As Dieter Rams wrote in his book, 10 Principles for Good Design, “Good design is as little design as possible”, and the only way to achieve this level of “less is more” is to constantly test our rebranding to make sure that it appeals our colleagues and users.

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