Bonusly, Enhanced: The Story Behind Our Transformed Brand

As you may have noticed, things look a little different around here. The Bonusly brand has been transformed with an updated logo, new colors and illustration styles, an enhanced user interface, and last but not least: a brand new website. 

The new site is the final building block to completing a truly integrated user experience. And while we hope you love the new look, it’s really what’s on the inside that counts. Each change was intentional, rooted in research, and aimed at providing a more accessible, enjoyable experience for all. 

Where we’ve been, and where we are now

Whether you’re a new customer or have been with us since the beginning—2013!—it’s worth noting Bonusly was the first recognition platform to enter the market. Said another way, we were talking about and enabling employee engagement best practices before it was cool. 😎

Don’t remember? Here’s a look at our original website: 

We pride ourselves in being one of the first—not because it’s a race, but because we’ve learned a lot along the way. 

The biggest lesson we’ve learned is that employee engagement doesn’t happen in a vacuum—it’s not only an HR function, and isn’t solved by quarterly surveys alone. Rather, employee engagement works when it’s embedded into a company culture and fueled by everyday habits.

Today, we’ve embodied this lesson into two guiding brand principles: being fun and smart. If Bonusly is fun, it’s easier to turn engagement tactics into a daily practice. And if Bonusly is smart, our community will trust that technology like ours is invaluable.

And that is the foundation of the visual language you see now; Bonusly’s new face, features, and functions all embody fun and smart elements to provide an engaging, enhanced experience for teams. 

Now, let's look at the new and bold Bonusly.

Highlighting what matters most

Our refreshed brand employs a user-focused design strategy that emphasizes what matters most—a company's culture, its employees, their accomplishments, and the genuine connections they foster. This strategic shift led to a redesign where the user’s content takes center stage, rather than the interface itself.

The "Highlighter" design tactic you’ll see throughout our new website serves as a constant reminder of our goal to prioritize user content and interactions, truly spotlighting what makes each company culture unique. 

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New logo

Our original logo was well recognized and easy to read, but had its limitations. The green color had contrast challenges and the wordmark felt a bit too corporate and generic, not fully aligning with our intended friendly and fun vibe.

The aim of our refreshed logo was to keep the brand recognition intact while addressing these issues. We subtly fine-tuned the icon to enhance its appeal while remaining familiar. We also shifted to a lowercase rendition for the company name to better express our casual and playful nature with a custom-designed font that added a unique curve to our logo.

Fresh colors

Bonusly’s aim is to highlight the best things in our customer’s culture. In order to do that we stepped back in the boldness of our color palette so our customers could see themselves in our tool.

While our affection for green hasn't changed, our color palette has grown to embrace a wider range of brighter colors. This range allows users to visualize data more clearly as we expand our analytics offerings. Our product's visual design has been refined with a lighter palette to ensure user content, like peer-to-peer recognition and important milestones, stand out against the backdrop. We've also pivoted to using blue for primary interactions, such as giving recognition and shopping rewards, to promote visibility, intuitiveness, and familiarity.

Lively illustrations

Our new illustration style is a unique mix of simplicity and dynamic storytelling. Using geometric shapes and our vibrant color palette, we've created compositions that offer a fresh perspective on the familiar. The layering of simple shapes forms something beautiful and new to the eye (like Bonusly!) while implying more action than what its static imagery shows. 

Although our designs don’t explicitly depict human figures, they subtly incorporate human-like features and metaphorical elements. This approach breathes life into our compositions, adding a touch of relatable whimsy. Every illustration tells a story, inviting viewers to engage and discover their own interpretations.

New product user interface and website

The refreshed user-based design strategy culminates where our community sees us most: our platform and our website. 

The original Bonusly platform, although functional, was a bit dated with technical limitations. So, alongside the visual rebrand, we revamped the underlying technology to enable quick and seamless integration of new features. Bonusly’s new interface has simplified users’ ability to recognize coworkers, navigate to popular pages, and amplify peers’ recognition. Plus, we’ve prioritized accessibility, meeting WCAG AA accessibility standards and ensuring a fulfilling experience for all of our users.

Alongside the new interface is a modern website that rounds out our slew of updates, delivering a cohesive, revamped Bonusly experience to our users and prospects. The new site makes it easy to find relevant resources, sign up for upcoming events, and learn more about new features and tools inside Bonusly. Visitors can easily start a free trial, too. 

Shining a light on your culture

As the working world has evolved, so have our beliefs, our product capabilities, and our brand. We are constantly listening to our employees, our customers, and our community, and taking action. 

An essential part of our rebranding is ensuring that Bonusly is grounded in our brand principles: that we’re fun to use and trusted by our users. We've worked hard to deliver an enhanced experience that does just that. 

Keep in mind, our brand is a constant work in progress—we're always working to make Bonusly more inclusive and accessible for all. And we don’t take this work lightly: We solve human problems that help evolve company culture and create meaningful connections. For now, we're committed to creating the product and workplaces we want to see through continuous improvement, reinvention, and innovation.

We deeply believe that investing in teams is the smartest business decision any organization can make—and I hope our fun and smart brand shines a light on your culture and what your employees bring to the platform.

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