Voom is a mobile app to connect travelers to a network of ride-share style helicopters that can be booked on demand.
ROLE
Lead website design, mobile app design (co-lead), marketing designer, oversee rebrand and apply new brand language to all customer touchpoints.
TEAM
A 20 person startup-style agile software engineering and design team. + Product owner and technical leads.
DURATION
6 months
CUSTOMER PROBLEM
Busy travelers have no time to sit in traffic on their way to get to the airport. They are looking for ways to quickly catch a connecting flight or go to a business meeting across town through the skies of Mexico City and Sao Paulo.
Some business professionals have heard of Voom and know it’s reputable as an Airbus-backed company. But when they download the mobile application or visit Voom’s social media, the visual brand left them with a little hesitation on pulling the trigger and booking a flight.
PREVIOUS VISUAL IDENTITY (before my rebrand influence)
“Its important to get the most out of my time. There are so many unknowns and obstacles between where I am and where I need to be, and no room for error.” – Customer feedback on need for ease of use.
“It is colorful and fun, but its more important to me to feel safe when I travel.” – Customer feedback on visual identity
“Helicopters are a little scary. They are tight quarters and I hear about crashes frequently. ” – Customer feedback on perceptions of helicopter travel
PROCESS
Voom partnered with the global design agency, Prophet to reinvent Voom’s visual identity. I was tasked with managing the collaboration between the agencies small team of designers and our internal stakeholders. The biggest area of improvement that we identified was to examine color theory and the psychology of visual communication through our brand language modifications.
BRAND PRINCIPLES
Seamless, Dependable, In Tune, Appreciative, Pragmatic
MESSAGE
Your ride. Your time. Your choice. So you’re finally beyond the hurdles and onto what matters.
REBRAND GOALS
Globally cohesive, focused on today while communicating future ambitions. Designed for the traveler but not luxurious.
COLOR INSPIRATION
Curious humans walk through nature, climb up hillsides, and fly explore bodies of water. Voom’s new brand was built with the natural surroundings in mind. Flying in a helicopter means you are just high enough up to see the intricate details of life float by– impossible to escape the natural palette we fly within.
The new analogous color palette that I influenced during our rebrand featured an array of familiar hues seen when flying by helicopter to a destination.
TEAL
An efficient combination of dark green and blue harmonizes the 2 most commonly found colors in nature. It also symbolizes the physical space that Voom flies through (in between the green ground and below the blue sky). Designers chose a rich dark teal to act as an anchor to the maturing brand. This versatile hue pairs well with just about every color on the wheel, making it the perfect base color to adapt with minor changes into the years.
TAN
In a digital world where light grey is the go-to neutral, designers opted for its friendly cousin; light tan. Plus, this warm neutral can be seen in the hillsides and city scapes of many of our favorite cities (Mexico City and Sao Paulo). Just like the dark teal tone, tan can be paired as a compliment to almost any color on the color wheel, making this the best choice for growing up and growing into the brand in the next few years.
GREEN
Playfully dubbed as “action green” by the Seattle team members as a nod to the Seattle Seahawks color rush uniform, this vibrant green is pretty cool!
This is Voom’s catalyst color to further evoke forward motion—because after all, green means go! A desaturated version of this hue is more commonly found in nature outside of the helicopter, and even more common to see bright green lights in the control panel of the helicopter as you fly. This color in the brand shows active rhythm, without being overly youthful.
LOGOTYPE
Symmetry is life, nature, and art. It provides visual rhythm, and balance. Our logotype is meant to be simplified and no frills, symbolizing order, clarity, and consistency.
REBRANDED CUSTOMER TOUCHPOINTS
OUTCOME
My work at Voom was fast and furious, and gave me a true startup experience. The work that is showcased above was designed, tested, and developed in under 6 months.
Here are some of the area’s I expanded my experience in while working at Voom:
- Pair Programming. Close collaboration with Engineers to bring our designs to life in real time. This created less design debt in our backlog.
- Managing an Agency. We hired an outside agency to rebrand Voom, and I was tasked with collaborating and guiding that work. This enhanced my communication skills, flex my visual brand language muscle, and think bigger for the future of our product for years to come.
- Global Design. Voom was the first set of products that I designed with localization top of mind. Brazil and Mexico were our flagship countries of operation before launching in the states.
