Companies grow up just as people do. Similarly, in the early life phases, companies and people grow up faster than when they reach maturity so the rate of changes can be really fast in this early period. This is what happened to us during the last few years.
We have walked a long way as we have grown up from having two brands - Mergin Cloud and Input app - which led to consolidation into Mergin Maps in May of 2022. This was a necessary move, but it was only later when we found out we needed to refresh our brand as well.
Why we decided to move on
As companies grow, brand inconsistencies are always a problem. Sometimes these problems are manageable with a little change, and other times rebranding is needed. While our goal is to make Mergin Maps as simple as possible for any user, our brand communication has not reflected this well.
Problem 1 - The most complicated way of saying “it's simple”
Our claim was “The easiest way to take your QGIS projects into the field”, which nobody ever remembered. Even our colleagues were just guessing the right wording, seldom making it right. After a few iterations, we made up “Collect. Share. Publish.” This claim is actionable, easy to understand, and has the right feeling of doing things simple - as we dedicate ourselves to do in Mergin Maps.
Problem 2 - Color palette not sufficient for an online brand
From the design perspective, we soon found out that the color palette we used was not sufficient to create a modern digital product. After hiring a new designer, we decided to expand the green color palette and redefine secondary colors, with the goal of making the design experience smooth and soft. Is it working better? We think so. It is giving us much more flexibility and a wider range of possibilities to design any important page, blog or social media picture.
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Hand-in-hand with color redefinition is the change of our logo. For the purpose of brand consistency, we didn't want a new symbol, so just a slight color change did the job.
What is next?
After changing the marketing website, we will be changing the user interface for both our web and mobile applications in the next couple of months. The changes will be about making your user interface modern, smooth and intuitive.
Let's have a look at the new dashboard:
And here are a few snapshots from the mobile app:
We can put a checkmark on the initial brand launch, but we know it is a never-ending process. Hopefully, this time it will last more than just a few months. Until the end of this year, we will be rolling out our new branding, app interface and improving our message consistency. What do you think of our new branding and visual style? Give us feedback: marketing(at)merginmaps.com.