Brand and digital studio Koto partners with Glassdoor for its first-ever facelift since the platform started in 2008.
Glassdoor’s rebranding coincides with the launch of a new mobile app and web experience, empowering millions of professionals with real-time conversations and communities to advance their careers.
This authentic platform redesign hones in on the tagline “Where work talk gets real,” offering new features to unite employers, potential interviewees, and anyone looking to gain insight about important subjects such as equal pay, workplace diversity, and life beyond work. Thoughtful illustrations and powerful infographics appear throughout to shine a light on the work-life balance we all seek.
“Brand and digital studio Koto has unveiled a refreshed brand identity for Glassdoor, the worldwide leader on insights around jobs and companies. The updated verbal and visual identity, combined with an enhanced product experience, emphasizes the importance of community by bringing behind-the-scenes conversations into the spotlight. Glassdoor’s rebranding coincides with the launch of a new mobile app and web experience, empowering millions of professionals with real-time conversations and communities to advance their careers.
For the past 15 years, Glassdoor has championed workplace transparency through millions of ratings, reviews, salaries, and insights. With the introduction of the new Glassdoor app and desktop experience, users can seamlessly navigate between insights, jobs, and workplace conversations, facilitating real-time networking, advice, and connections on various work-life topics.
Koto’s redesigned brand for Glassdoor aligns with the company’s reimagined mission of creating a healthier, more transparent work community for all. The brand idea of “your work people are here,” highlights the significance of the relationships formed throughout one’s career. From this powerful brand idea, Glassdoor has honed the impactful tagline “Where work talk gets real,” encapsulating the essence of their platform as a space for authentic and meaningful conversations about work experiences. A new vibrant color palette, playful illustrations, animations, and an encouraging tone of voice reflect this idea. The result is a streamlined product experience where every interaction on Glassdoor aims to foster authentic discussions on important subjects such as equal pay, workplace diversity, and life beyond work.“
To align with the brand strategy, Koto has given Glassdoor’s visual identity a significant makeover. The new logo brings to life the Glassdoor positioning—being the center of workplace conversations—with “gd” shaped quotations flanking the wordmark. The uppercase treatment of the type is fresh and gutsy, swinging open when animated as a nod to Glassdoor’s name. Koto partnered with Giulia Boggio to create a custom typeface “Glassdoor Sans,” a charming and functional geometric sans serif that features quirky characteristics inspired by office vernacular. To further the aspect of community, Koto partnered with Josep Puy to create a sophisticated and playful illustration library for product and marketing that visualizes the key themes of conversation, diversity, anonymity, and collaboration. These illustrations will be used across various brand, marketing, and product touch-points. The icon system has been designed to reflect the concept of “staying open,” featuring icons with intentionally missing pixels that symbolize transparency and openness. To enhance the digital product experience, Glassdoor will now feature custom emojis that add personality and expressiveness to user interactions. In line with the incredible amount of data Glassdoor offers its users, Koto needed to find a direct and engaging approach to data visualization. The new brand system highlights the most salient data through fresh infographics, illustrative storytelling, and a motion system inspired by the product experience—typing, scrolling, and revealing. All these thoughtfully crafted visual elements contribute to the engaging brand identity of the new Glassdoor.
Throughout the rebranding journey, the Koto and Glassdoor teams have embraced an inclusive design process, staying true to Glassdoor’s values of transparency and collaboration. After each creative presentation, Koto curated a creative overview to share with the wider Glassdoor team using its new community features. This “Glassdoor Open Design” forum encouraged discussions and revealed valuable feedback from Glassdoor employees and members of the design community alike, fostering engagement and maintaining transparency throughout the entire rebranding process.
“Today marks the most dramatic transformation in the Glassdoor product offering since our founding in 2008, and we’re highlighting this change with a new brand identity that celebrates the ways people connect around work-life today,” said Tim Murray, Glassdoor Senior Creative Director. “Through conversations, Glassdoor is giving professionals a way to get answers to questions they’d hesitate to ask in person, support one another along their career journeys, and build vibrant bonds inside companies, across industries, and in thousands of unique communities. Job seekers, employees, and employers all benefit from this change, which furthers the Glassdoor commitment to workplace transparency. Kudos to our partners at Koto for unlocking a brand identity that is as powerful as the new product offering.”
“Our work with Glassdoor was focused on creating a holistic brand that exudes confidence and open-mindedness, amplifying users’ voices through transparent conversations and real workplace insights,” said Deanna German, Koto Creative Director. “We wanted to represent the evolution of Glassdoor from being a destination for insights, to a thriving community for real workplace conversations. By strategically positioning the brand and designing a visually captivating identity, we have empowered Glassdoor to truly own their brand experience and thrive in their next phase of growth. The logo, typography, illustrations, icons, and unique brand voice act as powerful amplifiers of Glassdoor’s mission, reflecting their commitment to participating in a healthier and more transparent work community for all.”
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This article first appeared on printmag.com
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