Core Brand Assets

In 2020, Autodesk faced a unique challenge. Our flagship products and services were well known world-wide and in many cases were industry standards, however, Autodesk wasn't widely associated with them. To bridge this gap, the Autodesk Brand Team joined forces with Weiden+Kennedy to redefine our parent brand with bold simplicity. From there, the Brand Team spearheaded a transformative journey, amplifying our brand's essence across every interaction point. My focus in this endeavor? Design leadership, crafting core brand assets, product identity, and brand enablement.

Autodesk 2020 Rebrand

Project Type

Brand and Product Identity + Brand Enablement

Role

Senior Brand Creative

One of the core principles of Autodesk's new brand is that it achieves boldness by leading with black and white. Knowing the depth of the brand and all the touch points that it needs to be implemented across, I spearheaded the expansion of the palette to include functional accent colors to aid in effective and consistent branded communications. This entailed a collaborative effort with our Web and Human Interface Guidelines teams, rigorously testing accessibility and defining color functionality.

Parent Brand Colors

Detail Grays

Brand Accent Colors

As a global 3d software leader, our symbol had to step into the 3D world. It was only fitting that we created the final model using Autodesk's own tools. Building upon Weiden+Kennedy's starting point, I reshaped and perfected the design with Autodesk Fusion360 for a manufacturable version and then made a version optimized for general purpose use in Autodesk 3ds Max.

2D Autodesk Symbol

3D Autodesk Symbol

While a brand is so much more than a logo, it is one of the first things that people see and associate with a brand. After all stakeholders were in alignment on the best logo direction from Weiden+Kennedy, I took the lead on the Brand Team in coordinating the internal refinement process that led to the final logo.

Autodesk's new brand and by extension, new 3d symbol made its public debut at AU 2021, our flagship annual event. Owing to the pandemic, AU was held as a virtual event. This captivating animation served as the opening act of the web experience and took center stage in the keynotes, setting the tone for a bold new chapter in our visual identity.

We partnered with Black Book Studio to develop this reveal animation, I co-directed it

Product ID

Owing to the broad range of products Autodesk offers and the simplicity of the new parent brand-forward product ID, there was a functional need for a product color system. I took leadership on this workstream, working cross-functionally to ensure that all parties were in alignment, and that the color system met all accessibility requirements. Product colors appear in product icons, and additionally in the highlights of the 3d Autodesk symbol in each product image.

Autodesk product colors, 3 per industry

Full product color system with tints and shades

Architecture, Engineering,

and Construction

Product Design

and Manufacturing

Media an Entertainment

Brand Enablement

In the realm of branding, visuals that reinforce the brand's identity without overshadowing the message are indispensable. These high-value images find their place in corporate communications, customer interactions, PowerPoint templates, Zoom backgrounds, trade shows, and more. Leveraging the 3D symbol I crafted, I designed the initial iteration of our brand imagery using Autodesk 3dsMax. These high-res images are adaptable, whether used in full or creatively cropped for specific applications.

Two of many dark and light themed brand images I created for Autodesk

As part of our brand enablement process, the Brand Creative Team crafted a public-facing brand hub, offering a quick glimpse into our brand attributes, key ingredients, and practical expressions. The entire Brand Team collaborated on this effort and additionally created a brand training courseware that was required for all those involved in creating public facing media in Autodesk's name. For an overview of Autodesk's brand fundamentals, visit brand.autodesk.com.

Screenshot from the Brand.Aurodesk.com

Video plays a pivotal role in Autodesk's communication toolkit. To compliment the new brand, my colleague and I crafted the essential video assets for branding original content as well as guidance on how to use those assets, some of this can be seen on the Autodesk brand hub. Additionally, we created a set of internally available templates tailored for product-level content, ensuring a seamless and consistent visual identity across the board

Screenshot from the Autodesk brand hub

For internal partners looking for more high-touch engagement with the Brand Creative Team, we streamlined our internal engement procedures. This included setting up a more structured entry point for brand-related projects and introducing brand office hours. These office hours effectively managed the influx of brand feedback requests, a task that used to overwhelm us. I played a pivotal role in launching the brand office hours program, where I also served as a subject matter expert, offering guidance and handling hundreds of consultations throughout the program's duration.

To bring parent brand identity forward in product ID, I created a streamlined system for generating numerous Autodesk 3d symbol compositions with variable color highlights, resulting a large pool of imagery that could be assigned to individual products now and for a couple years into the future. I then assigned images to all the products and services that Autodesk offers, taking into account the feel of the image when paired with the product lockup, and the color category of the product. The product imagery was then fed to a vendor that assembled all in product assets. This system collectively shaved thousands of man hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars off the process of creating hero imagery for all our products while simultaneously creating a stronger association with our parent brand.