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2019 - 2023

Building a Scalable Brand System for SaaS Company

Contributed to defining the brand’s visual identity and developed comprehensive design systems across communications, marketing, and product design in a fast-paced, ambitious SaaS environment.

ROLE

Lead Graphic Designer

TIMELINE

2019 - 2023

About the company

Grafana Labs is the company behind leading open-source softwares for data visualization and monitoring.

Over a span of more than three years, this B2B SaaS company has experienced exponential growth in product scope, team expansion, and revenue. The early development of the company's marketing team and brand identity was a pivotal phase, shaping the foundation for its future growth.

Challenge

LACK OF BRAND IDENTITY

As an early-stage tech startup, Grafana lacked a cohesive brand and visual identity that clearly communicated who the company was and what it stood for.

LACK OF DESIGN SYSTEM

Grafana also had no established design system or component library to guide internal teams. This made it difficult to maintain consistency across branded materials and digital touchpoints.

INCONSISTENT WEBSITE

The website was in its early development stage: content-heavy, visually inconsistent, and lacking a clear structure or hierarchy.

Building a Cohesive Brand and Design System

WEBSITE REFRESH

To establish a systematic and cohesive brand identity, a robust design system was developed to ensure consistency across all touchpoints. The Creative Design team initiated the brand development process by redesigning Grafana.com’s homepage and other high-traffic pages.

One of the immediate goals was to transition from a dark, uninspiring background to a lighter, more inviting interface to enhance user experience and reflect the company’s open-source-friendly culture. Hints of orange shades and signature gradients were introduced to visually connect with Grafana’s logo and core identity.

Building a Cohesive Brand and Design System

DESIGN SYSTEM

A comprehensive library of brand colors, font styles, and web components was built, enabling consistent page structures and a seamless user experience. Since the redesign, key high-traffic elements of Grafana.com have shown noticeable improvements in UX, SEO, and overall performance.

Extending the Visual System Across Brand Touchpoints

Beyond the website redesign, efforts were made to refine key brand executions, including social media content, promotional materials, video assets, and branded merchandise. The focus was on making these assets more engaging, fun, unique, and representative of Grafana’s identity.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Each social media asset prioritized clarity and impact, utilizing bold yet cohesive motifs that aligned with the Grafana brand.

Visual hierarchy played a crucial role in content design, ensuring that essential elements — such as copy, logos, and product imagery remained the focal points. Other supporting motifs should not get in the way of the contents.

BRAND MERCHANDISE

Each social media asset prioritized clarity and impact, utilizing bold yet cohesive motifs that aligned with the Grafana brand.

Building Internal Communication Templates

To empower internal teams and partners with effective communication, the Creative Design team developed resources and tools such as master templates for presentations and documents.

These templates, built on shared platforms such as Google Slides and Docs, consisted live, editable components for easy implementation.

The introduction of these templates not only streamlined the process of creating communication tools but have also helped strengthen brand awareness among the users and partners and helped build a brand identity and morale among internal teams.

Produce presentation decks includes:

Company Culture deck (People Team)
Leadership Principle deck (Leadership Team)
Customer Reference deck (Customer & Community Marketing Team)
Sales Repository deck (Product Marketing Team)
Company Kick-Off All Hands (Leadership Team)

Scaling the Brand
Across Event Experience

With a solidified brand identity, efforts expanded to event and conference branding. GrafanaCONline and ObservabilityCON, the company’s two largest annual conferences, provided platforms to showcase open-source technologies, best practices, and product advancements.

Given the dynamic and fast-paced nature of these events, the Creative Design team worked efficiently from conceptualization to execution, navigating rough guidelines and tight deadlines. These conferences not only drove significant engagement and sales impact but also served as opportunities to experiment with new visual motifs and further evolve the brand identity.

GrafanaCONline 2021 resulted in over 700,000 active Grafana installations and a 90% increase in guest speaker applications compared to the previous year.

GrafanaFest:
Internal Event Branding

In addition to industry conferences, Grafana Labs hosted its first in-person company kick-off event, GrafanaFest, in Whistler, Canada.

The Creative Design team led the event’s branding and environmental design, striking a balance between the company’s core identity and a festive, celebratory atmosphere.

The event’s visual theme drew inspiration from Whistler’s natural aesthetics, incorporating playful and dynamic elements. Deliverables included stage designs, signage, atmospheric elements, and various on-site materials, all contributing to a visually cohesive and immersive experience.