Brand System for a SaaS Rebrand

Overview

After a Series A raise and a pivot to enterprise, a B2B SaaS company needed to shed its startup-casual visual identity and step into something that could hold its own in procurement presentations. I was brought in as the lead brand strategist and design director.

My Role

Brand strategy, positioning workshops, naming architecture, visual identity direction, and design system build. I managed a freelance visual designer and collaborated directly with the CMO and Head of Product.

Process

Phase 1 — Positioning

Before touching a pixel, I ran three positioning workshops with the leadership team and two with key customers. The goal was to surface the emotional and rational territory the brand needed to own.

The company was competing against two entrenched incumbents who both occupied "powerful but complex" territory. The opportunity we identified: be the brand that makes enterprise capability feel within reach — sophisticated without being intimidating.

Phase 2 — Identity

Working with the visual designer, I directed a visual language rooted in that "capable clarity" positioning: a clean, high-contrast typographic system, a restrained colour palette anchored by deep navy and warm white, and a modular illustration style built from simple geometric parts.

Phase 3 — Design System

I led the build of the Figma component library — 400 components across 6 breakpoints, with thorough documentation. We established clear contribution guidelines and ran two internal workshops to onboard the product team.

Outcomes

• Design system adopted by a team of 12 designers within 6 weeks of launch
• Component reuse rate reached 78% within 3 months
• Brand recognition in customer surveys improved significantly in the first post-rebrand NPS cycle
• Reduced time-to-first-mockup for new features from ~4 hours to ~45 minutes