Cloud Innovators brand design

Google Cloud needed a brand system for a new community based umbrella-program. This program would house all of the current fractured developer communities, education programs, and future ambitions. Developer outreach, education, and engagement is a huge piece of cultivating a community of professional practitioners and enthusiasts. In that regard, Google Cloud was way behind their competitors. The Google Cloud Innovators Program was the first step in offering a unified community experience from novice to expert to evangelist. The one element that linked all these groups and the existing programs were the people who committed themselves to the Google Cloud vision.

Services

• Brand strategy

• Creative direction

• Brand design

• Graphic design

Contributors

• Melanie Palishen - ACD

• Youngseong Lee - Designer

• Michelle Dominguez - Designer

• Rachel Janega - Engagement

As such this program's visual identity system could not be about technology, but instead a celebration of the people who come together to learn, connect, and build. With a recent rebrand for the master Google Cloud brand we were working in untested creative waters. The new standards were clear there were to be no new sub-brands, instead only accent elements that will not conflict with any of the Google Cloud style. There was a small group of master brand graphic elements like single color gradients and photography frames - but no guidance on how to evolve them to suit new applications.

We built a family of scalable geometric motifs that represent the human beings that come together to make the Google Cloud developer community. The outstretched arms of our individuals are abstracted and arranged to form blocks that references code text. This design needed to avoid the look of a logo of any kind so we developed usage guidelines and color standards that let the patterns live as asymmetrical accents that signal the program without living as a stamp or self contained “mark.” 

The visual brand rolled out at the launch of the Google Cloud Innovators program at Google Next 2021. We debuted a digital launch kit, marketing assets, badges, Google Slides templates, and on clothing items for community members.