Superlist Beta
Five years on from its sale to Microsoft, the founders of the highly popular Wunderlist app regrouped to found Superlist - a productivity tool that bridges the gap between personal and team management. A fast, flexible, highly customizable general purpose tool, Superlist collaborates and enhances your workflow, rather than challenge it. With a scheduled launch of late 2022/early 2023, I worked closely with the founders and wider team to create the brand foundations, strategy and visual identity ahead of the beta launch in late 2021.
Discover & Define
By running a series of interviews and workshops involving the core team of founders, product designers and developers, I was able to establish the foundation for the brand and help form the initial vision, purpose and values of the brand. In turn, these values would translate directly to the brand personality and inform the beginnings of the tone of voice.
Brand Purpose: Empowering People, Supercharging teams
Superlist celebrates the uniqueness of the user and provides supportive, mindful productivity to everyone, and in turn, supercharges the teams they are a part of.
Creative Platform
The initial foundation work provided the framework for a creative brief, which alongside competitor and audience research allowed for the exploration of several creative solutions.
Following feedback and input from the core team and investors, a single creative thought emerged that not only provided us with guiding principles for our visual language, but allowed us to strengthen the brand foundation and formalise the purpose, values and tone of voice, alongside the development of the visual identity.
Superlist's mission is to celebrate the sense of accomplishment that comes with being productive; enabling individuals with effortless organisation and supercharging the teams they are a part of. Superlist allows individuals and teams to Be Super.
As the beta product began to take shape it was clear that the initial visual identity was not consistent with the product design, where 99.9% of audience engagement was to take place.
The Superbar is a simple highlight bar within the product that symbolises 'supercharged' productivity in both light and dark modes, and initial designs saw this as a 'live' asset. Given this was the most prominent aesthetic feature in the product itself, it made sense that this would help form the bridge between the brand and product.
A Wunderful nod to the heritage
As one of the most popular and powerful project management apps for individuals and teams, Wunderlist amassed a dedicated following that are eager to use Superlist. Given the love for it’s predecessor, it was a fun challenge to reward the audience with several subtle ‘easter-eggs’ within Superlist’s visual identity, all based around the 24-degree angle of the Wunderlist ribbon.
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Wordmark
A bold, contemporary sans serif font formed the basis of the wordmark, which borrowed the
24-degree angle featured on the Wunderlist logo. The angle was applied at key visual points
of the overall form, representing the founders and investors of the new brand.
Introducing The Flow
"Flow - the optimal state of being in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed
in a feeling of energised focus, full involvement, enjoyment and satisfaction in the process
of the activity."
The Flow is an essential part of Superlist’s brand expression, representing the “optimal experience” and the the dualism of our audience: individuals and teams. This symbolism of the balance of the two personas and acknowledging that teams consist of many unique individuals, is the visual representation of our brand purpose.
App Icon
With a nod to the skeuomorphism of the original Wunderlist app icon, Superlist goes against the predictable and flat iconography of the competition and creates something tangible and noticeable in your dock. Immediately recognisable, the app is on hand whenever the user needs.
The first icon of it’s kind to have an on/off state, The ‘supercharged’ on-state light signifies the life and energy within the brand, and the power it provides.
Typeface: Brand presence without a logo
Superlist Headline is a bespoke typeface influenced by Aeonik Bold; a geometric sans serif font created by Mark Bloom and Joe Leadbeater at CoType Foundry.
Inspired by the Wunderlist ribbon, and the approach taken to the wordmark, the 24-degree angle was subtly (and sometimes, not so subtly!) incorporated into the Aeonik form to create a much more human, approachable and recognisable brand font.
User-centric 3D Models
All core imagery is expressed through specifically created 3D assets, guided by two principles; ‘Elegant Simplicity’ and ‘Inspired by life’.
In order to communicate the everyday functionality of the product and the versatility of it's use, a series of 3D models were commissioned to be used to support and represent user profiles.
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Brand In Action
Super Dynamic
Based around a series of 'skeleton' assets inspired by The Flow - this dynamic identity can be customised or inspired by the audience, partnerships or events. and in doing so, the engagement and longevity of the brand is extended and open to any number of creative interpretations.
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Summary
The work shown above was the result of one year's work, that began by creating the brand foundation - story, mission, purpose, values, personality and tone of voice - and realising all of this through the visual identity.
Superlist launched their beta product in late 2021, and is currently in user-testing with a planned launch of late 2022/early 2023.
