As Factorial, a leading HR software platform, rapidly expanded, the need for a cohesive and manageable brand identity became increasingly clear. Although a rebranding had been done just three years prior, the company’s rapid growth and evolving nature called for a refinement of its visual identity to better reflect its current position and future ambitions.
Factorial’s tagline, “Where People Grow,” inspired our approach to the brand refresh. We viewed growth as more than just expansion—it’s about changing to keep growing, integrating lessons learned, and evolving while staying true to your core identity.
I began the Factorial brand refresh with an audit of existing brand elements, revealing four key insights:
· There is a lack of cohesion and consistency across brand touch-points caused by rapid expansion and multiple teams creating assets with no guidance.
· The 2021 rebranding needs refinement, with updates to colours, typography, and iconography, while staying human-centric.
· Mixed use of old and new branding across platforms requires a redesign for a cohesive, modern look.
We maintained our logo due to its strong alignment with our brand and high recognition among our target audience. Composed of simple geometric shapes and featuring our primary color, Radical Red, the logo symbolises our human-centered approach to technology. It conveys a vision where design seamlessly integrates into everyday life, with the subtle representation of a human figure reinforcing our focus on people.
To strengthen Factorial's brand identity, we focused on highlighting its diverse brand extensions as a unified family. While each brand extension has a distinct focus, they needed a consistent voice. By introducing 'Brand by Factorial,' we simplified the brand architecture and ensured a cohesive, impactful experience. This approach allows each brand to maintain its unique identity while aligning with Factorial's core values.
We modified a dynamic and cohesive colour palette to accurately reflect the brand’s identity and reinforce its association with Radical Red, which had diminished over time. The new colour system combines solid tones with subtle gradients, adding depth and personality to visual elements, ensuring a consistent yet striking aesthetic across all platforms.
Solid colours are led by Radical Red, the primary brand colour, accounting for 75% of the palette. It symbolizes the brand’s warmth and positivity, prominently used in display compositions and the Talent vertical, reflecting a focus on people and human connection. Chill Frost complements Radical Red by providing a refreshing contrast, particularly in backgrounds and text, balancing its warmth, with Midnight used for text.
Other shades like Viridian, Sunbeam, and Tangerine distinguish different product verticals while maintaining visual cohesion. Radical Red is key for external communications, enhancing brand recognition, while Chill Frost offers a cool, neutral background. Subtle gradients are employed for internal communications, and cooler tones like Ice and Glacier are used for social media and digital assets, ensuring consistency without overwhelming the visuals.
This is a guide of colour combinations that ensure legibility and have visual appeal.
We have carefully chosen a new typographic direction for the Factorial communications, transitioning from the previously used Fira Sans to DM Sans. While Fira Sans served us well, it began to feel outdated in its visual style. As we evolve, we sought a typeface that embodies modernity, precision, and versatility, which led us to DM Sans. Its geometric structure and clean lines give our brand communications a refined, balanced, and distinctly modern appearance. The adaptability of DM Sans, whether for digital or print, ensures that our message remains clear and cohesive across all platforms.
Complementing this is Inter, a typeface designed specifically for user interfaces. With Swiss design influences reminiscent of the iconic Helvetica, Inter offers a softer, less mechanical feel, enhancing the user experience. Inter excels in legibility, particularly in small-to-medium-sized text on screens, which is crucial for a seamless, user-friendly interface
We chose a warm and rounded style for the icons to create a sense of approachability and friendliness. The soft curves and inviting shapes make the icons easy to recognise and understand across different devices, ensuring clarity and accessibility on any screen size."
Our visual identity features coloured geometric forms known as artifacts. Each artifact, a geometric abstraction of letters from our logotype, has its own distinct personality and embodies different aspects of Factorial HR’s values. By deconstructing the logotype into these basic components, we create a versatile visual language that reflects the core principles of our brand. These artifacts can be combined for various purposes, including illustration, decoration, and data visualisation, enhancing the flexibility and impact of our visual communications.
Data visualisation is more than just presenting numbers; it’s about telling a story. We use our artifacts to create engaging and visually appealing graphs, adding personality and clarity to complex information. This approach not only resonates with our brand identity but also ensures that data is accessible and understandable for everyone. By prioritising clear design and thoughtful use of colour and layout, we make complex information more relatable and easier to interpret.
We decided to focus on authenticity in our photography, capturing real moments with natural poses and settings. Instead of striving for perfection, we highlight candid moments that reflect the true human experience, never cropping people out of context or placing them on artificial backgrounds. We prioritise clarity and brightness without heavy filters to keep the story clear and authentic.
Additionally, we use a glass effect for titles and text, maintaining transparency without obstructing the visuals.
Product presentation matches the product’s design with a clean, minimalist aesthetic. We showcase it in a simplified macOS context, emphasising key features with larger UI elements. Stylised screens highlight features clearly, with mobile-first designs and grey lines for extra info. Full UIs are displayed with subtle drop shadows or on neutral devices.
All markets have adopted the new branding, resulting in a cohesive and consistent website experience across all regions. This alignment ensures that every market reflects the unified brand identity, providing users with a seamless and recognisable experience no matter where they are.
Our social media reflects our updated branding with a bold, vibrant color palette and consistent design that’s visually striking and instantly recognizable. The use of contrasting hues highlights different areas of our business while maintaining a clean, professional tone. Every post—whether individual, carousel, or thumbnail—follows a cohesive layout, ensuring content is both engaging and easy to digest.
We mix post formats to highlight key partnerships and solutions, delivering clear messaging and in-depth insights. By featuring people in our content, we add a personal touch that aligns with our mission to help businesses grow through effective people management.
We use concise, straightforward language and visual elements to enhance understanding and break up text-heavy sections. Our documents are clean and organised, ensuring a user-friendly experience. This emphasis on clarity reflects our core values, ensuring that our message is always communicated effectively, regardless of the document's purpose.
We created a comprehensive brand book to capture every aspect of the refreshed identity, making it accessible to everyone within the company. This brand book serves as the single source of truth, outlining the updated visual identity, including colours, typography, iconography, and key brand elements. It also provides templates for various types of documents and communications, ensuring consistency across all touchpoints.
We also developed a design system in Figma, shared company-wide as a central library. This system standardised all design elements and components, allowing for easy, consistent application across teams. It enables quick updates if any changes or additions are needed and includes templates for social media, internal documents, and other materials, ensuring efficiency and on-brand content creation throughout the organisation.
We also developed a design system in Figma, shared company-wide as a central library. This system standardised all design elements and components, allowing for easy, consistent application across teams. It enables quick updates if any changes or additions are needed and includes templates for social media, internal documents, and other materials, ensuring efficiency and on-brand content creation throughout the organisation.
When shaping our tone of voice, we made a conscious decision to prioritise how we communicate, not just how we look. We wanted our words to truly reflect our personality and values, ensuring that every interaction feels authentic and meaningful. This led us to develop a voice that is both approachable and trustworthy, allowing us to connect with our audience on a personal level while maintaining professionalism.
We carefully chose to be reliable and straightforward, communicating with clarity and transparency. At the same time, we aimed for a casual, conversational tone—one that feels inclusive and friendly. By blending empathy with our technical expertise, we created a voice that not only provides solutions but also relates to the human side of the challenges we solve. This balance ensures that our communication remains consistent, clear, and true to our identity across all platforms.
The Factorial brand refresh significantly enhanced the company’s market presence and operational efficiency. By creating a unified visual identity and detailed brand guidelines, we ensured that Factorial maintained a professional and consistent image across all platforms. The introduction of easy-to-use templates was instrumental for the rapidly growing team, allowing for efficient production of high-quality materials despite varying design skills. The brand’s adaptability to different cultural contexts further supported Factorial’s expansion into new markets, while preserving a cohesive brand experience.
The Factorial brand refresh was a challenging yet rewarding experience that pushed me to look beyond traditional design and consider the broader implications of a brand's growth. It highlighted the crucial need for a flexible brand identity that can adapt to various cultural contexts. Supporting a rapidly expanding team underscored the importance of creating practical solutions, such as versatile templates, that cater to different design skill levels.
This project also reinforced the value of having a robust design system and regularly updating brand guidelines to remain competitive in a fast-changing digital landscape. Working with diverse teams and addressing their unique needs fostered innovation and ensured that the brand stayed aligned with evolving market trends. These insights have enhanced my approach to branding, focusing on building adaptable and scalable solutions that support ongoing growth and success.
