freee

Rebranding an SaaS Company Empowering Small Businesses

We assisted in the rebranding of freee, an integrated management platform provider. Our process involved interviewing management and frontline staff to hear from them the values and experiences that freee aims to provide through its services. These insights formed the foundation for the brand core and design principles. Based on them, we developed the brand logo, illustration system, and design guidelines.

freee Official brand site

Until now, freee has provided cloud-based services to support back-office operations such as accounting and HR management. The company has now renewed its vision to become “an integrated management platform that allows anyone to run their business freely,” stating that it intends to support not only back-office operations but also the management of all kinds of people. The new brand design echoes this vision.

Research

At the start of the project, we gained an understanding of freee’s mission and business strategy, interviewed executives and staff, and researched industry trends. We then established the ideal image freee was aiming for, its current challenges, and its expectations of the rebranding.

From a brand and design perspective, the image of the accounting software that has been freee’s main service up to now is strong; however, the vision that freee aims to achieve and the value it provides as an integrated service aren’t properly recognized by potential users. The design language used since the company’s founding hasn’t yet been fully adapted to the diversifying services and organizational forms.

In addition, although a design concept already existed, it wasn’t strongly connected to the company’s mission and vision, and there was no definite way of realizing it. In light of these issues, the brand core was defined in terms of the user emotions that freee elicited through its services. Accordingly, the experiences and perspectives it values for this purpose were summarized as design principles.

Brand core

The brand core represents how we want all people involved in small businesses to feel when they make use of freee.

Through a series of interviews and dialogues, we felt a strong desire to create a world where everyone can run their business freely, and we established the word freedom as the core of the values on offer. We further broke freedom down into three elements—liberation, naturalness, and a touch of fun—and devised a story for each to give a more concrete image of the world that freee is aiming to create.

Design philosophy

The design principles represent the kind of experience and outlook to be delivered through products and communication in order to achieve the brand core.

By analyzing what freee values in design and what it lacks, and reconstructing the brand core in a design context, four keywords were derived: nonchalantly simple, reassuring intelligence, forward-looking relaxation, and enjoyable spice. Mood boards and design images for each keyword are available on the brand website.

Note: The brand website in the video was created by freee based on the deliverables of this project.

*The brand website in the video was created by freee based on the deliverables of this project.

Logo

Having retained the identity of the swallow symbol and the cursive text in the logo, both of which elicit great affection, we redesigned them to be easier to use and to express the philosophy that freee aims to embody.

The swallow, which has been used as a symbol of liberation since the company's founding, has been reinterpreted as a symbol that represents user freedom. In this respect, the shape of the swallow has been reconsidered and refined, making it smoother and simpler. It’s now easier to animate and pose, and it can also be used to add a touch of fun to different scenes.

The light-heartedness and fun of the previous logotype, which represented the path of a swallow in flight, were also in keeping with the new design principles. Accordingly, we updated the logotype to one that could stand alone and also be incorporated into a system, while maintaining its identity and improving legibility and visibility.

The product logo is based on the design of the corporate logo and consists of a combination of product names, motifs, and other elements. At the same time, app icons and other app resources were created.

Illustration

As small businesses are the primary users of freee, ease of understanding and familiarity with the service are key factors. For this reason, in accordance with design principles, we’ve created a unique illustration style for freee. It’s based on a systematized structure that lets anyone create new illustrations.