Clari Corporate Work
VALUES UPDATE
Redefining Our Company’s Values
Like most companies, Clari’s foundational values are at the center of their culture but like everything else, they need to grow and evolve with the company. This post will show how two teams worked together to update these visuals while keeping them true to the heart and soul of the organization.
The Brief
Requestor: CEO and founders
Timeline: 4 Week turnaround
Goal: Revisit and update the company’s core values and give the company new images and messaging to rally behind without losing the soul of the original values
Contributors: Jessica Louie- Sr. Designer, Yunyi Zhang- UX Designer, Stephanie Yen- UX Designer, Zoe Liang- Sr. UX Designer, Isaac Horton- VP Design
Process
The work we were about to do, redesigning the visual identity of the companys core values, was a unique project in that it was very personal and near and dear to the CEO and was essentially the heart and soul of our company.
These were the original 5 Value icons
Not only did we have to go through our normal research process and explorations, but I also wanted this to stretch further than just my team of 3. I reached out to the head of the product design team Isaac Horton and asked him if he was cool with his 4 product designers joining forces with my team to collab on this. The idea was that his product/UI designers would possibly bring a different perspective and unique pov to the icons we needed to create. Once I got his approval we put our timelines and delivery dates in place and kicked off the project with our new design supergroup.
Step 1: Intake form and internal review followed by a discussion with the head of product design
Step 2: Kick-off call with all designers
Step 3: Exploration and critique
Step 4: Presentation of 3 directions to the CEO
Step 5: Refine and finalize
Quick call out to the above mentioned steps. Step 3 was by far the most fun. It was soooooo cool to see how the product designers approached the project and presented their ideas. And then to watch the marketing designers collaborate with them on each element and the story that each piece was telling. I can’t show that here but I can show you a mood board of a bunch of their concepts because its dope AF.
Results
The result was 6 unique icons that were on brand, unique, and powerful. But the explorations into these helped both teams get a better understanding of the new shapes that made up our core brand post the rebrand a few months earlier. It also gave everyone an opportunity to test the limits of those shapes and styles helping to define the use of those shapes in later projects down the road.
Funny story btw about me losing a bet with our CEO. He told me he wanted to give all our employees a shirt for each value. I replied, “Cool, so you want a single shirt with all the value icons on the front, correct.” He was like, “No. I want 6 individual shirts for every employee. And would love the definition on the back of each.”
Short answer, I was not into this and I told him, “Dude… No one is going to want six black Clari shirts. That seems like a huge waste of money to send those to every employee. Also, employees live and breathe these values, why add the definition on the back of them? That will almost double the cost of each!” He smiled and said, “I want them to be reminded about that value every time they put on the shirt. Trust me. It’s worth it.”
And you know what? He was 100% right. I thought 90% of these shirts would end up in the landfill or at Goodwill stores around the country but they didn’t. Employees LOVE them and wear them ALL THE TIME. It’s so weird to me but awesome and I’ll be the first to admit that I was wrong about them.
They were given to every employee at the time and are still given to every new hire. We even created a branded box for the set to level up the experience (See below).
