Stackline Brand Refresh
Visual identity
Art direction
B2B SaaS
Overview
Stackline had evolved from a retail analytics platform into an AI-powered retail growth ecosystem spanning insights, forecasting, advertising, shopper behavior, and automation. As the product suite expanded, the brand needed a more mature and scalable visual identity to support the company’s next chapter.
Challenge
How do you evolve a growing enterprise brand without losing the recognition it has already built?
Outcome
The refresh gave Stackline a stronger visual foundation for an AI-heavy product roadmap. It helped the company present a more unified, premium, and ownable system across its website, marketing, product storytelling, and internal guidelines. We preserved what was recognizable, then redesigned the system around clarity, cohesion, and scale.
Role
Collaborated on the visual identity with a three-person team, while leading new website product visuals.
Team
Timeline
04/25 - 07/25
Tools
Figma
TL;DR
Built a clearer, more scalable brand visual identity for a company expanding from analytics into AI-powered retail growth.
As Stackline's product suite evolved, the external brand needed to mature with it. I collaborated within a three-person design team and the CEO to refresh the visual identity, build product logos and platform icon families, and create product-forward website imagery. Brand-guideline codification became the next phase after the launch.
Key insights
6
Redesigned six product logos into an ownable and cohesive system
20
Built twenty new capability icons across our five platform pillars
59%
Desktop users, reinforcing need for better product storytelling
9.8
Pages per visit, making visual consistency across the site essential
The challenge
What was broken?
An identity that no longer fit: Playful abstract shapes felt increasingly disconnected from Stackline's enterprise direction.
Rules that didn't scale: Color and graphic treatments required constant adaptation instead of offering repeatable guidance.
A gap between brand and product: The visual identity no longer reflected the sophistication of Stackline’s evolving product suite.
A growing architecture problem: Stackline's growing list of products, services, and capabilities needed a clearer visual hierarchy.
Where we started → where we landed
Designers were adapting the system on a case by case basis, which created extra work and reduced cohesion across brand collateral, product visuals, and the website.
We evolved Stackline's muted enterprise identity into a more refined, editorial system that lets product UI, storytelling, and imagery take center stage. Below is a before and after example of how the refreshed brand came to life across the same social touchpoint.
Scope & goals
In scope
Our team evolved Stackline’s visual identity across typography, color, product and capability icons, as well as the product imagery used throughout the new website. We collaborated closely with the CEO and supported the brand refresh from exploration through launch.
Out of scope
While we helped shape how the refreshed brand appeared on the website, we did not own its information architecture, UX, page layouts, or development. Motion design was also produced by an external contractor using assets prepared by our team.
Design process
A progressive, component-first build
Instead of designing one screen at a time, we started with the smallest building blocks and composed them upward, aligning the team, systemizing the parts, and assembling full pages from reusable components.
Brand foundations
We made the brand quieter so the product could be louder.
Typography
Aa
Geist introduced a sharper, more technical, web-native tone while preserving legibility across high-density brand and product surfaces.
Color
#031425
Moving from Oxford Blue to Carbon Indigo (#031425) created a more premium off-black/navy foundation.
Reduced decorative noise to let the product UI and artwork take center stage.
Logo architecture
One of the most important system decisions was separating the product logo family from the new stricter platform/ capability icon system.
This gave us a clearer hierarchy: products could have memorable identities, while capabilities could function as a scalable navigation and service taxonomy.
Product logos
Dark navy, geometric reduction, circular silhouettes, and negative space gave each product a distinct metaphor without becoming overly illustrative.
Platform icons
A stricter grid language made the twenty parent capabilities feel like a cohesive taxonomy across: Reach, Engage, Merchandise, Convert, and Expand.
Website visuals
Instead of showcasing the product UI through screenshots or lo-fi mocks, we used the actual interface as a graphic brand element.
Our product's UI became the bridge between brand promise and product proof: it was precise enough to feel credible, and composed enough to work as marketing imagery.
Human layer: The vibrant artwork helped soften the AI complexity and prevented. the site from feeling like a wall of dashboards.
Product proof: UI visuals made the website feel more tangible without relying solely on static app screenshots.
Motion-ready: Assets were prepared so motion could reveal product capabilities without overwhelming the website pages.
Wall of love
What people said
A collection of unsolicited feedback from teammates, leadership, and partners across Slack. These moments of validation helped reinforce design decisions, surface new opportunities, and guide iterations throughout the redesign process.
Reflection
Scope creep is real, and it isn't always a bad thing. It just needs to be managed on purpose. What began as a conversation regarding whether we should update our primary brand color, became a brand refresh because our audit kept surfacing real problems, not because we couldn't say no. The lesson learned wasn't "let's avoid scope creep," it was "let's conduct an audit first, then let the evidence set the scope."
Brand systems need explicit rules. A brand can look polished in one-off assets but still create friction if the rules don't scale. We often positioned brand cohesion as a growth lever for clients, and this project reinforced why: brand inconsistency costs real time (e.g., designer re-work, marketing confusion) and real trust, especially for a company asking Fortune 500 brands to trust it with their market data.
Product UI can carry brand trust. For complex B2B SaaS, utilizing actual product visuals across marketing collateral can make the brand promise feel concrete, especially when the product itself is dense and data-heavy.
Executive critique requires translation. Working closely with the CEO pushed me to connect aesthetic decisions to business clarity, sales storytelling, and long-term scalability.
I would've liked more involvement in the website's UX and information architecture. The design team owns the visual identity and the product-forward imagery that filled the site, but the layout and IA decisions happened outside our group. In hindsight, The brand work would likely have been stronger with a seat at that table from the start.
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