Revize brand and website design

Important Note:

This project unfortunately never went live due to shifts in company priorities. With that in mind, this project allowed me to refine my design process and capabilities, the results of which I'm proud of.

Background & Problem Statement

Revize is known for building standout, user-friendly websites for municipalities, but its own branding wasn’t living up to the same standard. The identity felt outdated, and internal assets like sales decks and proposals had become a bit of a patchwork over time. With major changes happening behind the scenes, this rebrand marked the beginning of a fresh, new chapter for Revize.

Considering the Use-Case

Knowing who, how, and where the brand will be used can impact creative decisions. Will sales be making their own presentations to match the brand? Will there be physical use-cases, or only digital? This is what was determined:

• Important material will be made by designers and other employees should not make alterations
• The brand usage will almost entirely be digital, with limited physical applications such as custom packaging and conference materials
• When non-designers need to make their own material, they should have assets (i.e., icons and graphics) they can easily utilize

Starting with an Initial Concept

The major areas the brand needed to hit was showcasing our creativity, while also being clean and minimal. The goal would be to reflect our focus on custom websites and a easy-to-use CMS.

While I was ideating my own concepts, my stakeholder, who has 20+ years of experience in design himself, created his own vision. This is what we used as a starting point for me to build off of:

Areas to Adjust

To build off this starting point, I needed to layout the key areas and how they could be improved:

Creating a Final Concept

After exploring different brand variations through graphic experiments, I created the design you see below. It brings an energetic, creative, and professional feel that reflects what Revize stands for.

Lessons Learned

This project had its ups and downs, but there were a lot of great moments too. In the end, my stakeholder was happy with the final result. It also taught me some valuable lessons that I'll take with me moving forward.

Creating a Proper Starting Point

Branding plays a crucial role in shaping a company’s identity, influencing future materials and how the audience perceives them. Looking back, I wish I had been more thorough during discovery. As I developed mood boards and style tiles, I realized they weren’t enough for my stakeholder to grasp the direction I was envisioning. This led him to create his own starting point instead.

In hindsight, rather than presenting these early iterations, it would have been more effective to design a few sample graphics or marketing materials to communicate the concept before moving forward with a branding guide, which he immediately requested based on his own version.

Balancing Creativity and Accessibility in Typography

This ties back to the importance of being thorough, but as a strong advocate for accessibility, I was initially hesitant about using a handwritten font. While it effectively conveys values like creativity, a human touch, and high-quality service, its use must remain purely decorative. It should never be essential for understanding a title’s message.

Overall, I’m pleased with the choice, as it adds character to the brand. However, for future projects, I believe it would be worthwhile to explore alternative options to ensure best practices are met.

High-Fidelity Prototype

After nailing down the branding and the website layout, the prototyping easily falls into place. To create a clear path for development, I wanted this to be a high-functioning prototype, filled with scroll animations and hover effects.

Before you view the design, note that the second section on the homepage highlights Revize's three services. The gray blocks on the right were intended to be short videos showcasing the services, but the project didn't progress to that stage.

Core UI Features

• The content is centered around Revize's 3 main services: websites, a CMS, and web applications. Users can quickly engage with these through the menu or scrolling down on the homepage.
• The design approach focuses on bold, concise text, subtle movement, and imagery to capture attention.
• As mentioned earlier, the script text needs to have purely visual use. Throughout the website, it is never used to communicate essential information in headings.
• As mentioned earlier, the script text needs to have purely visual use. Throughout the website, it is never used to communicate essential information in headings.
• Each page has a call-to-action at the bottom, encouraging user acquisition.