Mashbot

Mashbot is a progressive and innovative digital technology firm that works with large enterprise tech clients who need to modernize their internal solutions or optimize their client facing products and services. At the heart of their offerings are microservices – a strategy that breaks large operational monoliths into small, discrete solutions that are more agile and adaptable – and their Visualize – Realize – Optimize (VRO) full-service philosophy. They came to us as a newly founded company, but one that was made up of industry experts working together to implement their novel solution. Out of necessity – and using the tech expertise they already had – Mashbot had created a basic website with a short and succinct outline of their services. It also featured a modern, yet unconnected early version of their brand that lacked distinction or impact.

Highly Specialized Technology Solutions

As with all of our projects, we began our work with Mashbot with an in-depth discovery session that helped us learn more about their services, their industry, and set some early goals. This took on an additional level of complexity with Mashbot. We’ve worked with other clients in the tech industry, but Mashbot’s services and solutions are uniquely complex. This gave us the opportunity to expand our understanding of not only their niche and highly specialized services, but also a broader understanding of the enterprise level clients they work with.

Professional, Impactful, and Memorable

While it was important to find a way to communicate Mashbot’s specific solutions and position them as industry experts, we first needed to ground their identity in personality, emotion, voice, and narrative. For their new brand we explored a spectrum of identities, from one that presented a softer, more human focused driver of their tech solutions (evoking something like a helpful and invested college professor) to a slightly aggressive disruptor in the tech space (a voice that was challenging, to-the-point, and solutions focused.) Naturally for the industry, we explored a lot of high contrast color palettes, but it quickly became clear that Mashbot had the energy and distinction to support not only color, but something bright and vibrant as a core part of their visual identity.

Ultimately we landed on a direction that combined elements of all three of our initial concepts, and that centered the people behind the technology. This identity had the vibrancy and personality to help Mashbot standout while still remaining professional and appealing to enterprise level tech CEOs.

The People Behind the Tech

As we continued to expand the brand into collateral and a new website design, we kept Mashbot’s newly developed tagline – SMART TECH IS INHERENTLY HUMAN – at the center of everything we were creating. The main feature of photography across the site was not the tech solution itself, but rather the people behind that solution, building the strategy, doing the coding, and creating real human connections. We also kept the copy focused on warmer, more relationship-based language. Even the top navigation took on a more personable tone, exchanging the more common “Services” “Approach” and “About” for “What We Do” “How We Do It” and “Who We Are.” To keep the brand identity balanced and connected to the tech world, we also included messaging that was a little more progressive and challenging, inspiring Mashbot’s audience to “Evolve with tech, not against it.”

Agile Solutions, Iterative Strategy, Distinctive Identity

Two of Mashbot’s major differentiators – their microservices strategy and their VRO philosophy – became centerpieces in their messaging and a thematic design element across the new website. Because these concepts were both novel and complicated, we had to create a way to represent these services visually so that their purpose and value could be quickly understood. We accomplished this through thoughtfully minimal custom animations and graphics

For the style of these graphics, we wanted to continue to explore the brand’s identity in balancing technology and the human touch behind it. We also looked for opportunities to incorporate animation into these elements to make them as engaging as possible. Through a combination of minimal animation, isometric grids, and a blueprint aesthetic, we found a perfect balance of intentionally handmade, but still technology-evocative solutions.

When we started our partnership, Mashbot already stood out in their industry because of their unique solutions and expertise. We helped them unlock an identity that effectively reflected their value and the unique distinction of their services. With a brand developed to accurately represent the personality and experience of working with their team of experts (as well as a distinctive and informative new website design) they are now set up to become a memorable and trusted partner in the tech space, ready to continue to scale their progressive solutions for years to come.

RECOGNITION      Hermes Creative Awards – Gold for Integrated Brand Campaign