Retool aims to provide developers the building blocks to more quickly, easily, and intuitively build good software.
When I went to work for Retool in early 2023, I was excited about joining a talented team and taking on the task of building a world class brand for Retool. At Retool, I worked with the most talented team I’ve ever been a part of, completely rethinking the brand from top-to-bottom, to more strategically align with our primary audience: pragmatic builders.
The logo is a thoughtful evolution of the old mark, representative of the “building blocks” that Retool provides its users. Like our product, it feels smooth and connected, flowing and flexible, yet bold and sturdy.
The visual system is a flexible illustration toolkit comprised of two distinct styles: ‘build’ and ‘ship’. The build style is technical and represents the process of building an idea for good software. The ship style embraces a sense of wonder and aspiration, an imaginative approach to well-designed, functional software and all that it enables.
When I went to work for Retool in early 2023, I was excited about joining a talented team and taking on the task of building a world class brand for Retool. At Retool, I worked with the most talented team I’ve ever been a part of, completely rethinking the brand from top-to-bottom, to more strategically align with our primary audience: pragmatic builders.
The logo is a thoughtful evolution of the old mark, representative of the “building blocks” that Retool provides its users. Like our product, it feels smooth and connected, flowing and flexible, yet bold and sturdy.
The visual system is a flexible illustration toolkit comprised of two distinct styles: ‘build’ and ‘ship’. The build style is technical and represents the process of building an idea for good software. The ship style embraces a sense of wonder and aspiration, an imaginative approach to well-designed, functional software and all that it enables.
“An R made of building blocks, pieces of a story not yet all told, pieces of whatever users will build. An evolution of what was that leaves room for further reimagining.”
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Logo concepts.
The brand was developed around two distinct types of visuals: build and ship.
Build is inspired by technical drawings – blueprints, wireframes, plans, etc. It is simple and straightforward and we use it when talking about technical features of our products. It can also be used as accents and supporting visuals for elements of the product.
The ship style is based in reality, but with a sense of wonder. It is used for high visibility moments such as the website header and campaigns. It is used when telling aspirational stories of what Retool enables.
Build is inspired by technical drawings – blueprints, wireframes, plans, etc. It is simple and straightforward and we use it when talking about technical features of our products. It can also be used as accents and supporting visuals for elements of the product.
The ship style is based in reality, but with a sense of wonder. It is used for high visibility moments such as the website header and campaigns. It is used when telling aspirational stories of what Retool enables.
Credits:
Justin Pervorse - Head of Brand Design
Ryan Lucas - Head of Design
Gabie Matte - Associate Creative Director
Cam Sackett - Interactive Designer
John Choura - Interactive Designer
JD Reeves - Brand Designer
Chris Sandlin - Brand Designer
Hannah Meng - Brand Designer
Jordon Chueng - Illustrator
Etienne Ma - Brand Strategist
Thom Allen - Engineering Manager
David Robbins - Engineer
Giles Lavelle - Engineer
Kim Fellman - Design Producer
Willa Gross - Design Producer
Illustrations: Banh Joy, Jaedoo Lee, Lili des Bellons, Shane Fu.
Video/Motion: OK Motion and RightHand Films.
In February of 2025, I suported the Intercom in-house brand team on a logo design for Fin, their customer service AI agent.
Because Fin is the definitive solution for customer service, the symbol is intended to represent an overall concept of completeness and finality. All directions and paths lead into Fin, with arrows creating a star shape in the interior negative space, the common visual convention for AI. The overall footprint of the mark is defined by the Intercom symbol (the “Squinge”), allowing the mark to feel more integrated with the existing Intercom brand and website.
Because Fin is the definitive solution for customer service, the symbol is intended to represent an overall concept of completeness and finality. All directions and paths lead into Fin, with arrows creating a star shape in the interior negative space, the common visual convention for AI. The overall footprint of the mark is defined by the Intercom symbol (the “Squinge”), allowing the mark to feel more integrated with the existing Intercom brand and website.
Holly Ventures invests in and supports world-class cybersecurity founders, beginning at the earliest stage of company building. Founded by John Brennan, Holly Ventures focuses on Day Zero: the stage where founders need direct engagement with the decision-maker and flexibility in how they structure their cap tables. Backed by investors from Bessemer Venture Partners, Ballistic Ventures, CRV, Vanderbilt University, Okta Ventures and more, Holly Ventures delivers the network breadth of a far larger fund while preserving the flexibility and responsiveness of an angel investor.
The brand draws inspiration from the holly tree and its symbolism of heritage, resilience, and protection. We leaned into the visual motif of a holly berry, creating a visual expression that leverages the circle shape across brand patterns, interactive website elements, and photography treatments.
Framer development: Connelly Rader
The brand draws inspiration from the holly tree and its symbolism of heritage, resilience, and protection. We leaned into the visual motif of a holly berry, creating a visual expression that leverages the circle shape across brand patterns, interactive website elements, and photography treatments.
Framer development: Connelly Rader
Coming soon.
Apoxy is a proxy platform for improving the security, observability, and usability of APIs and services at scale. Their programmable proxy allows developers to write code that handles the operational concerns of their applications rather than piles of configuration.
I worked with Apoxy just before their selection into YCombinator S23 to develop a flexible and cohesive brand identity that communicated the complex functions that Apoxy handles behind the scenes in order to harden developer API infrastructure and keep everything running efficiently and securely.
Visually communicating abstract concepts like data, integrations, proxies, and APIs is always an interesting challenge. For this concept, I landed on a simple, monoweight illustration style that played off of the negative space in the mark. Leveraging that device into a small illustration bank, I created a flexible system that was appropriate and functional for the stage of the company. The color palette is versatile in that it is able to feel both mid-century as well as fresh and contemporary.
The small mark/favicon is a more simplified, 3-line version of the full mark, allowing it to work at a smaller size while still feeling consistent and crisp.
I worked with Apoxy just before their selection into YCombinator S23 to develop a flexible and cohesive brand identity that communicated the complex functions that Apoxy handles behind the scenes in order to harden developer API infrastructure and keep everything running efficiently and securely.
Visually communicating abstract concepts like data, integrations, proxies, and APIs is always an interesting challenge. For this concept, I landed on a simple, monoweight illustration style that played off of the negative space in the mark. Leveraging that device into a small illustration bank, I created a flexible system that was appropriate and functional for the stage of the company. The color palette is versatile in that it is able to feel both mid-century as well as fresh and contemporary.
The small mark/favicon is a more simplified, 3-line version of the full mark, allowing it to work at a smaller size while still feeling consistent and crisp.
“We believe this brand will continue to work for us for a very long time because it really is based on why we started this company and our culture/philosophy.”
– Matt Ward, Co-founder and CEO, Apoxy
