Slack Brand Design Projects, 2017-2018

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Slack

Brand Design Projects, 2017-2018

Services: Art Direction, Graphic Design, Illustration, Animation and Motion Graphics, Print and Packaging, Editorial, Photography

As the lead brand designer at Slack, I work on a variety of projects from product marketing and feature launch campaigns, to internal designs for employees, to sales and customer success materials both digital and physical.

The following is a collection of just a few of my favorite projects from 2017 and 2018.

Shown above: One of the illustrations for the App Space tutorial (below). This was an alternate color palette for this illustration that I was always very fond of, but in the end, we went with the more colorful option. Still, I thought this project roundup warranted showing the version that I always hoped would see the light of day.

Slack Notebooks: “A Place to Connect the Dots”

We needed little notebooks to give out to employees and prospective customers for dreaming and for doodling, and so I illustrated and designed these colorfully-patterned, saddle-stitch journals.

I wrote the tidbit on the inside of the back cover about returning the book, but my brilliant coworker Anna Pickard wrote the lovely copy inside the front cover.

Companion Guidebooks

Slack’s editorial and marketing teams wanted to create a new resources page allowing downloads of new eBooks that demonstrate the product’s usability for different roles.

I approached the design of the eBooks from an editorial-focused perspective: treating each book as its own item, with illustrations specific to the content, and a different illustration style and theme for each booklet. They were all unified through a single-spot color style as well as the same typographic style and layout. This creates a cohesive set, while still making each unique, so that as they grow over time, the page becomes more of a library of resources.

Designer, and “Software Development” Illustrator: Russell Shaw
“Marketing Teams" Illustrator: Nick Slater
“Sales Teams" Illustrator: Viet Huynh
Author: Lima Al-Azzeh

Each book featured unique illustrations from a different illustrator on our team.

Viet Huynh contributed the Slack for Sales illustrations (the gold book).

Nick Slater contributed the Slack for Marketing illustrations (the green book).

I contributed the Slack for Software Development illustrations (the blue book).

Printed Versions

Actions Launch

With the launch of Actions, Slack’s platform has become a richer experience by allowing users to turn messages in-channel into tasks, tickets, pull requests, and more in their favorite workplace applications.

This new feature launch required a lot of user education as well as promotional materials to be used in the announcement at the developers’ conference. The materials were also given to press.

I designed a series of animations – with five launch partner apps – showing the new function in an abstracted view of the product to teach people the power of the feature.

Then, I designed static materials around this to create product abstractions that served as marquee visuals highlighting the new feature as well as the growth of the platform overall (on API’s blog).

Product Designer: Bruce Sullivan
Frontend Designer (App Directory Landing Page): Maria Kalalang
Platform Marketing Manager: Julie Haynes

Custom Animations for All Partners in Launch

App Directory Landing Page

App Space Tutorial

The Slack sidebar was launching a new integration to bring more third-party apps into the product, and with it, we needed to create a tutorial highlighting this new capability.

We designed a modal with three illustrations plus copy detailing this new way to install apps. I created the illustrations for each stage of the tutorial.

Product Designer: Diogenes Brito

Customer Love and Admin Appreciation Box Kits

Over the two years, I helped the marketing and sales teams develop custom gift boxes that contain branded “Thank You” gifts, swag, and promotional content and collateral. These boxes have mix-and-match items that can be included in each, including Channels magazine, a custom tea blend and ceramic mug, letterpress stationery, co-branded Mast Brothers chocolate bars, and more, as well as content specific to subsets of users such as Slack Admins, who received branded wooden desk puzzles, metallic pins, booklets, and a screen-printed cotton drawstring bag with a custom “BUILD” lettering illustration imprinted on the front.

All of the materials are shipped in a printed exterior box that reads “Good things are inside,” and sealed with a custom, repeating pattern roll of kraft tape.

Marketing Photography

Our internal brand team was able to work on a lot of fun photography shoots together to create images for landing pages, performance marketing, and concept photography that was used to then define new photography for advertising campaigns and more photoshoots.

Here's a selection of photographs I shot that were used for internal concepts, as well as some that made it out in the wild on some of our digital ads and webpages.

Shared Channels Launch

Slack announced the private beta of Shared Channels at its first user conference. This new feature would allow users from different companies and organizations to collaborate across Slack using a common channel.

I took a story-driven approach to the campaign announcement graphics – I illustrated workspaces for multiple companies along a single supply chain, where each company was built out of the facade of the interface, and the users of each company collaborate and achieve a common goal throughout the story. This all came together in one, long-scrolling infographic, as well as supporting static graphics and an animation that was shown in press pieces, the company and developer community blogs, and in the product in a modal and a coachmark.

Product Marketing Manager: Nami Sung

Illustrated User Interface

“Thank You” Cards

Working with the customer marketing team, I helped create these custom, tri-fold “Thank You” cards that the customer success and sales teams send to customers. The card features a diecut “Hello” on the front, which allows the Slack-branded plaid pattern (printed on the reverse of the card) to show through.

I also designed a custom bellyband, and an envelope which features the plaid pattern printed full-bleed on the inside.

Printer: Hemlock Printers
Illustration: Alice Lee
Copywriting: Jennifer Phillips

Humans of Slack – Employee Podcast Branding

Slack’s internal communications team wanted to launch an internal-facing podcast that interviewed different employees of the company about their life and work, and I partnered with them to create the branding for it. Called “Humans of Slack,” I designed an icon that is a combination of a podcast microphone and a smiling face. We printed laptop stickers with the new logo, in all of the color options, and distributed them in the office. I also designed a logo animation, podcast banner, and podcast episode graphic template.