CloudTeams
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CloudTeams is all about collaboration, and that’s also how it was created. Co-funded by the European Commission, this two-year joint project brought together five different organizations to make an online platform that encourages collaboration between software developers and early adopters. As part of this border-crossing project, we created the CloudTeams brand, designed the visual components and defined the user interaction guidelines.
Client — European Commission
Products — Platform · Corporate website · Branding · Styleguide
Disciplines — Digital strategy · Interaction design · Visual design · Front-end development · Brand communication
Year — 2015 / 2017
Armed with only a rough prototype and a few key features, we kicked off the project by designing the brand identity. The clear visual personality helped guide the entire development process, from testing user perceptions to defining the boundaries of the platform with the other partners.
The logo came first and set a playful tone for the rest of the project. The two hands poised to give a “high five” can also be animated or used as a physical element, bringing an extra layer of fun to videos and events.
As soon as we had a better picture of the entire platform and its capabilities, we defined the main user journeys. Due to the wide range of functions and features, we broke everything into short, easy steps.
We wanted users to achieve each goal – like creating a project, inviting team members or creating a questionnaire – as quickly as possible, to avoid being turned off by a long chain of tasks.
When we first presented the front-end design to our partners, the immediate response was: “Wow, that’s really purple.” And we took that as a compliment. Because to make CloudTeams stand out from all the other platforms, we deliberately picked a color that was anything but tech-y. The strong, regal purple separates CloudTeams from the rest of the software crowd and supports the playful brand personality.
The final step required our partners to apply the brand and visual identity to the platform they were developing. Our interactive style guide made the process as smooth as possible. Besides the basics like font and color palette, we developed a range of visual building blocks to keep the style consistent on every page.
CloudTeams has now launched a beta version and is ready to take the next step to connect software developers and early adopters in Europe and beyond.
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