Salesforce asked how we would redesign their own largest sales tool – salesforce.com – while fast-tracking our usual UX process. They were in the earliest stages of a rebrand with just a new logo and proprietary typeface. This added up to a relatively instinctual exercise on a blank canvas where we contributed to storytelling, photography direction, and product branding in addition to the core design system.
Early sketches—
The digital products themselves were visually outdated, so we chose to focus instead on their legions of loyal and evangelistic customers. The incredible volume of business success stories makes Salesforce an unquestionable authority. We wanted to create a visual system designed for storytelling inspired by editorial design. We started by working on the visual components – type, color, visual language, photography – first independently and then in conjunction with each other.
Below, a couple pages from the full system of a dozen templates. Surprisingly for a sales-oriented company, the site was not talking to potential customers in a targeted way. So we tested our system with a new landing page for their fastest-growing customer segment: small businesses. The page had to focus on concrete results while keeping the energy level high. We also knew that case studies would be the real sales workhorses, so it was important to ensure early on that our editorial approach felt authentic and trustworthy.
Product branding—
We included some of our initial thinking on how their product branding could be visually stronger while staying focused on the people who benefit.
Final designs—
Incorporating Salesforce Sans, the brand new corporate typeface, led us to push the designs in a lighter and friendlier direction.
Design team: Jessica Bauer-Greene, Johan Rundberg, Nicole Berman, Amanda DiGiammarino