Asana:
Brand & Product
May 2014 - Nov 2015
ROLEBrand Strategy
Rebrand Co-Lead
Product Design
COLLABORATORSAmanda Linden
Asana Design Team
Casey Martin
Jessica Strelioff
Justin Rosenstein
Moving Brands
Vanessa Koch
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Redesigning teamwork
Asana is one of the world’s leading collaboration platforms, relied on by teams at Intel, NASA, Samsung, Spotify, Aetna, Tesla, and The New York Times.
In 2014, I joined the company as their sixth designer. I helped lead a complete rebrand, and designed product features that led to significant user growth.
Brand Identity
The Old Look
“In an ocean of bland, blue-tinted enterprise software, we saw ourselves as a magical, multicolored narwhal. But if you looked at us from the outside, it’s understandable if all you saw was another fish.”
—Excerpt from my Medium articleBrand Strategy
Before partnering with Moving Brands on visual identity, I led an internal brand strategy process to clearly define the personality of the company.
I documented the rebrand process from start-to-finish in a detailed article that is still one of the most-read design articles on Medium.
142,000+ views on Medium
The New Identity
The rebrand was universally loved, and has served the company well as it has grown over the past decade.
While credit goes to Moving Brands for the iconic logo, and to Asana’s entire design team for the identity system system, my role was to bring it all together.
By connecting the design work to the strategy I helped establish, I ensured full buy-in from founders and other key stakeholders. I then rolled out the identity with a Brand Book and company-wide presentations, ensuring that it was fully embraced and adopted.
“The new Asana is clear, colorful, and quirky. It’s a place to focus on your work, while remembering that work doesn’t need to be boring.”
—Excerpt from my Medium articleProduct Design
☝🏻 Note: Much of my product work was before the rebrand, so the dated visual style reflects that.
New User Experience
One of the biggest problems people had with Asana was that it was hard to get started. I designed an onboarding experience, which led to significant user growth & retention.
UI Redesign
I was not the lead designer on the UI redesign, but I contributed many designs to that process. Several of the UX concepts I developed made it into the new product.
Celebrations
One of Asana's most beloved features are the fun animations after completing a task. After discovering this, we brought even more moments of celebration into the product.
♥
“I’ve been thrilled to work with Micah. His strong sense of empathy makes him a talented designer and writer, while his ability to see the big picture makes him a sharp strategist across brand and product.”
Justin Rosenstein
Founder, Asana