To set the tone of the, I wanted one word that would capture the Expanse brand and set the tone for the rest of the visual identity. After a lot of ideating, I landed on the idea of discovery.

Discovery was the perfect word. It described the core of what drives Expanse and the essential component of security. People can’t secure something they don’t know exists.

Now that we had the concept of discovery for our theme, I began exploring color. We explored ways to bring a primarily blue color palette to life in ways competitors hadn’t as well as areas of the spectrum relatively unclaimed by other cybersecurity companies.

I particularly loved the way the color Violet connected to our brand story. Violet light reveals things that the human eye cannot see without its help. It marks the line between the visible and invisible. And while we considered the other palettes, when we saw this shade we knew it was the one.

This shade became the base of the palette construction. I added mint to demand attention and electrify its audience as a key color, while grounding the palette with a mature navy. I wanted to construct a palette that would create a feeling of awe the way the sense of discovering newness can. I also wanted the palette to communicate our brand attributes of being ambitious, visionary, and elite.

Trade Gothic Bold Condensed No. 20 made a great primary font to complimented the Trade Gothic Extended of our logotype. It added boldness to our brand, and communicated our brand attributes of directness, intelligence, and honorability.

Our secondary font, Roboto, made a perfect choice to pair with Trade Gothic for body copy. While Trade Gothic as our only font would have created a very harsh, authoritative feel, the humanist sans of Roboto made our brand personable. Our product was already designed in Roboto Condensed, so selecting this font reduced the work for our Product Design team to include with their rebrand efforts.

For our photography we chose a style that would use unique angles to communicate the concept of being able to see your network from a different perspective. Using clean and cool tones communicated certainty. While the photos we assembled communicated our style, we planned to create a library of photography that reflected our target audience.

Our concept for iconography centered around the idea of creating a look that would echo the design element patterns frequently seen in network related industries, but treat them in a modern way. We also needed to create a style that would support abstract concepts. This series of icons we created represented the most frequently discussed use cases, audiences, and terminology used to explain Expanse’s services.

We created an illustration style that would support abstract concepts. Our style needed to have the right level of depth and complexity to communicate the advanced level of our technology.

The result of all our work was a visual identity that stood out from the rest of the cybersecurity pack. Among the requirements it met, it:

• Depicted us as an advanced company that provides order in the midst of chaos.

• Conveyed optimism about the future of the internet as a visionary leader in the industry

• Gave visual life to our brand attributes:

We activated the identity across our digital and print channels, including website, educational materials, event designs, presentation design, video, etc. You can see a selection of those designs here.