When we began crafting Carousel’s visual brand six months ago, we wanted it to feel true to the type of memories you’ll find there: the funny, imperfect, real photos that mean the most to you. We’d love to tell you a little bit about our process.
THE LOGO
Our first goal was to create a logo that evoked the playful-yet-timeless feel of the name “Carousel.” Strategically, it also had to stand out on the phone’s home screen and compete for attention among other apps, especially potential competitors (ie. the native Gallery).
We went through a whole slew of iterations, jumping off of themes like clusters, photography, bursts of color, and actual carousels. The logo we finally went with was based off of a concept created by our buddy Andrew Johnson at IDEO. It’s a representation of your photo stream, with the three top spokes suggesting individual memories.
THE STYLE
With the logo locked, we sidled up to our next challenge: Dropbox traditionally uses illustration in its branding and marketing. But how do you showcase a photography app without using photography? We weren’t sure it could be done.
So we dove into photos. We tried to explore a hybrid: line-art illustration atop photographs, but it came off as forced and busy. We tried placing colorized filters on top of photographs to make them one-toned, but it looked too much like aspirational stock photography. The more we stared at the photo collages we put together, the less they felt personal — the photos that matter most are the ones of your friends, your family, your memories. Photos of strangers just felt alienating.
Finally, we threw out the blueprint and got playful. In the last forty minutes at our week-long branding offsite, our team created a fun, pastel watercolor style that played well with our existing illustration style but was much more vibrant. This colorful, loose style greatly informed the look of our final brand.
THE STORY
If you look carefully at the Carousel website, or the onboarding flow when you first open the app, you’ll notice the same two characters appearing in every single illustrated photo. You see our heroes Nora and Owen as they go through their life: camping together as kids, growing up together, and finally getting married and having a kid of their own. And since the two of them were starting to feel like old friends, we brought them to life in our Carousel video.
THE GOODS
Having a style and a story was all well and good, but we knew there would be diverse demands on the visual branding. We’d need to see the brand through the app itself, its website, and any emails or blog posts going out to users, but also in print, on huge canvases at our launch event.
Ultimately, we had a lot of fun crafting the Carousel’s visual brand, and put a lot of ourselves into it, from Ryan’s signature bear and cupcake to Alice’s initials on the “wedding invites.” From the colors we chose, to the individual moments we imagined for Nora and Owen’s lives, we put a lot of love and care into creating the Carousel story.
Enjoy the Easter eggs!