Founded in 2011, DoiT International had grown to be the largest global reseller partner for Google Cloud and one of the fastest growing partners of Amazon Web Services (AWS) globally. As its hyper-growth trajectory looked set to continue for some time, leadership knew it was necessary to overhaul the look and feel of the once little and local cloud consultancy to help them take their rightful place in the big league.
So was the major task set for me when I joined DoiT in 2021. Everything except the name was up for examination and change, as needed, but before we could get into the look, style and tone, I needed to define the company’s purpose, point of view and positioning.
I designed and led a cross-functional, multi-round messaging exercise that collected input from leadership, customers, partners and employees, navigated through was what nice versus true, and identified who this company was, why they are here (and so successful), what they aimed to do going forward and how precisely they intended to accomplish those goals.
The outcome
Style guidance
Because DoiT is a fast-growing and globally distributed company, it was important to set some simple guidelines for people to follow when creating their own content or assets.
Our tone of voice is:
- Approachable
- Trustworthy
- Confident
- Humble
Everything we make is:
- Smart
- Relatable
- Helpful
- True
Rather than making everyone page through a comprehensive style guide (though we made that too) or brand guidelines, those two checklists served as a touchstone for everyone to keep their work aligned with the brand.
Visual identity
With our messaging and positioning clearly defined, it was time to tackle the visual identity. The existing logo and style had a few major problems that the new identity needed to address. Beyond creating a fresher look more befitting an innovative technology company, we needed to solve for:
- How people read the brand name (do it, doyt, doight, do IT… we heard some pretty creative interpretations)
- Limitations on brand use and application (single logo design with small font that did not work for smaller applications; specialty and expensive font)
- Outdated feel and approach to identity (felt more like a neighbourhood consultancy than a tech company, with flat colours, outmoded illustrations and zero flexibility)
We needed an identity that communicated:
- We are fast paced, forward thinking and future ready.
- We are nimble, agile, flexible.
- We are reliable, trustworthy, confident.
I envisioned this as an evolution of the brand, a new identity to move the company forward as it continued its growth. And all of that was communicated to the incredibly talented visual designers who worked to create the new brand…
Ultimately we went from this:
To this:
A new visual identity with multiple iterations and applications. We named the hero colours Ink and Spark, the idea being that ‘ink’ stands for planning, writing, coding, noting things down, while ‘spark’ is the innovation and ingenuity that sets the idea alight.
Complete, accessible guidelines
Key to the rollout of this new look and feel across all areas of the business, including partner and agency use was to create a publicly available repository for all brand assets and guidelines. We did this in zeroheight, with a style guide available at brand.doit.com.
Key deliverables
Of course a full scale rebrand touches every aspect of the company, from swag to slides, letterhead to website. The complete rollout of the new DoiT brand took time and careful coordination, and aside from the messaging and identity assets and guidelines, there were a few key pieces to get into people’s hands.
The pitch deck
I worked with key stakeholders and some of our most successful sales and business development colleagues to fully reimagine our pitch. When we started, the template pitch deck contained more than 70 slides. When we finished, it was 5, with some supplemental slides to detail key products/offerings, significant case studies, etc. which reps could add to their pitch as needed.
The slide template
The standard company slide template had to be just as simple and dynamic. We created an easily editable template that included 25 variations for text, graphics, figures, quotes and whatever else people could think to ask for.
The product
DoiT’s product platform is how they engage with customers for everything from service delivery to support to product development, so the brand application had to be spot on, user friendly, accessible and working from the off. The process was fantastic — working with an incredible product design team to help create a design system and workflow style that was functional and appealing both for no-nonsense cloud engineers and for the employees and support crews that were quickly falling in love with the new brand.
Read all about it, including how the rebrand offered an opportunity to improve the accessibility of the product, in this blog post.
The website
And that brought us to to the website. But that was a whole project altogether. Read more about that here.
Full guidelines and brand assets can be found at brand.doit.com.
The design system updates and product application can be seen at design.doit.com.
The brand is probably best experienced by visiting doit.com.
All work was done for DoiT International, a leading strategic partner of AWS and Google Cloud.
COCOYAY 