Bonusly Brand Refresh
Bonusly, is an employee recognition and rewards platform which while a leader in the new space, had a stagnating outdated brand image. Known for being a platform than employees loved, they sought to expand their platform’s strengths and showcase how they were the “new way” to do employee engagement. The company aimed to shift its brand perception from “fun and easy” to “fun and smart,” emphasizing accessibility, transparency, and thought leadership.
Objectives:
- Enhance Brand Perception: Transition from early startup principles of “fun and easy” to elevating the brand to “fun and smart” and position Bonusly as a thought leader in the HR space.
- Improve Accessibility: Create a welcoming, inclusive, and user-friendly experience across all touch-points.
Roles
- Design Owner: Judith B.
- Marketing Owner: mixed
- Content Owner: Laura S.
- Brand Design: Brad M.
- Product Design: Frederick A.
- Copy Lead: Maja O.
Visual Design
Concept: Highlighter was the name of the brand direction; using bright colors, soft containers, and a light-minimal aesthetic to spotlight the unique company cultures of its customers.
Logo: The logo was fine-tuned to maintain brand recognition while addressing concerns with tone and flexibility. The color palette was shifted, and custom lettering was introduced for a more polished and playful vibe.
Color Palette: The color palette was expanded and contrast tested to include a wider range of hues and tones allowing for more flexible applications in UI and illustration, clearer data visualization, and coding of types of content within the platform.
Website Overhaul
The old Bonusly website was piecemeal constructed over many years without a CMS and requiring extensive engineering coding for any updates. The redesign incorporated industry best practices, results from years of A/B testing, and a new approach to user journey based on analytics data. Due to the marketing team’s lack of a web expert, I took on the role of assessing, recommending, and iterating on the expected visitor paths and resulting site and page architectures. See live site.
Illustration System
A large piece of the rebrand was adding illustration into both product flows and marketing materials to create a unified brand experience. The product was brought to life with quirky clever illustrations, aimed to add extra moments of fun. In marketing, the cohesive use of illustrations could both make complex ideas more accessible and conversely use metaphor to make a visitor stop and think. Lastly, how to simply represent Bonusly’s platform and benefit to unacquainted prospects tied together UI, photography, and illustration.
Product Alignment
The product designers and engineers undertook the massive project of overhauling the underlying technology of the Bonusly platform, revamping it for seamless integration of new and planned features, rethinking base user interactions, and ensuring WCAG AA accessibility standards.
My involvement on this side of the project was limited to aligning with product design on design system standards, creating illustrations and assets for the platform, and exploring concepts for future features through user interviews, workshops, and Figma prototypes.
An Ongoing Process
The rebranding resulted in a more integrated and enjoyable user experience, grounded in research and focused on accessibility. The strategic shift in design and messaging successfully repositioned Bonusly as a leader in the employee engagement space, aligning with the company’s mission of being both fun and smart.
For the re-brand launch additional assets and templates created included, digital ads, tier 1 ebooks, animated Bonusly philosophy, and employee swag.