Building a brand to support our growth and ambition
Behind one simple click sits a world of complexity. A press of a ‘pay’, ‘checkout’ or ‘subscribe’ button brings a whole world of connections and integrations, and routes for authentication and authorization.
It is this world of payments that our merchants have to maneuver through every day. ProcessOut is here to help merchants navigate through the complexity and make payments their superpower.
Three words: Simplicity, flexibility and performance. This is what we stand for.
We have refreshed and reimagined our visual identity to better match our core principles and the market leading products we build. This marks the first step in a broader strategy to establish a strong design function at ProcessOut, making design a key component of our platform and value proposition.
It is my mission to create compelling experiences for our merchants and this starts with creating strong foundations in our brand identity.
I would like to walk through our journey and the creative process. This is more than just an updated look - it's a reflection of our dedication to simplifying payments, offering flexible solutions, and delivering unmatched performance.
Our aim
A key goal of the project was to create something that our merchants and employees would feel a strong connection with.
For merchants, we’re a loyal partner. We bring our technical expertise and knowledge to make payments an enabler for the success and growth of their businesses.
For employees, ProcessOut is a tight-knit team that works hard to build the best products.
We wanted to create something that represents those ideas and embodies our core values of simplicity, flexibility and performance.
The concept
When defining the creative direction and concept we wanted to make sure that everyone had the opportunity to have their voice heard.
In a series of workshops with people across the company we went back to basics to make sure we were aligned on our values.
The outcome
The outcome of this project is not just a lick of paint or an updated logo. It's a brand that reflects our principles. That allows us to be visible, bold and modern.
The logo
Our logo is a strong and simple signature for our brand. We've designed it to work wherever you need it. It’s made up of two parts - the icon and the wordmark. It’s designed to work however big or small we need it to be.
The brand icon is made up of four components: effectively four building blocks. It communicates simplicity through its use of limited elements, and modularity through its construction and assembly of the four blocks.
The icon is designed to be used as a standalone mark, as we build brand recognition in the payments world.
The wordmark has been carefully crafted to flow as you read across the word, with a subtle adjustment to the ‘e’.
Typography
We have a new typeface to lead the visual expression of ProcessOut. Founders Grotesk, by Klim, is at the heart of our identity and is the foundation for all ProcessOut branding. It is clean, distinctive and legible, in order to express both contemporary and future facing qualities.
In the words of Kris Sowersby:
“Founders Grotesk is a gentle amalgamation of several fonts, resolutely designed for contemporary typographic usage.”
For those of you who are interested, there’s a fascinating write-up here.
Color
When we assessed the market and the colors used by our competitors we saw a sector saturated in blues, black & white and purple.
It was important for us to create something new that reflects the expertise and rigor we put in building our products while at the same emphasizing the joy, energy and passion we bring to work everyday. It quickly became clear that color was the area through which we could express this.
Our color palette is a key component of our brand and ensures recognition, visibility and distinctiveness.
A deep grey, with an injection of blue is the perfect backdrop to our high visibility yellow.
When we want to grab the attention of our audience or bring focus to key messages we can deploy small but powerful doses of yellow. And when we want to feel more refined we can swap the yellow for white.
Our secondary palette brings flashes of color to keep things looking fresh and balanced. The semantic colors - red, orange and green - help bring meaning to more data-focused content.
What’s next?
We’re really excited about our new brand. We think it represents who we are and we’re looking forward to seeing it in action.
Right now, I’m focused on applying the new brand to our products. We’re also updating our design system to be aligned with the new brand - an exciting challenge.
On a more personal level I’ve always believed in the power of design to differentiate companies that are good from those that are truly great, care about their customers and create compelling experiences. This project, and every design project is a manifestation of that idea and an opportunity to express it.