Adobe
The evolution of a global creative icon
What we did
Industries
Adobe, a brand renowned for unleashing creativity and shaping the world through digital experiences, sought our collaboration in rethinking and codifying its brand system.
In a crowded creative landscape, we aimed to solidify and sharpen Adobe's identity and system elements, building on its leadership with an eye toward the future. We delivered a recognizable, adaptable, and scalable solution across Adobe's entire product ecosystem and businesses. By focusing on Adobe's iconic brand elements and heritage, we created a system that is simple and recognizable, enabling Adobe to show up authentically and with clarity.
This collaboration with Adobe Studio and the Adobe Design and Brand Strategy teams went far beyond a brand update; it was a transformative journey that worked to reshape a global identity system bridging Adobe’s future with its storied history. The result is a codified brand system that seamlessly connects all products, services, content, and experiences in a way that is uniquely Adobe.
Inspired by Marva Warnock’s 1982 design, we created a confident logotype that felt both inevitable and timeless—like it had always been an integral part of the brand’s DNA.
The intention behind this shift was to confidently spotlight the Adobe name, rather than require numerous mental connections between logos, wordmarks, and lockups.
Wordmark drawn in collaboration with the Adobe type team and MCKL type.
We transformed the negative-space ‘A’ logo into a positive-space expression and integrated it into a wordmark inspired by Marva Warnock’s 1982 design.
We clarified the color palette with a renewed focus on black, white, and particularly Adobe's signature red, to increase brand recognition and ownability.
The Lens
To give confidence and clarity to Adobe's presence across its product ecosystem, we created the Adobe lens, a frame-like graphic device that contains, highlights, and transforms imagery. The lens is a unifying, immediately recognizable symbol representing Adobe's role as a "portal" to transformation and creativity.
New to the system is the Adobe lens, an ownable and flexible graphic device symbolizing the brand as a portal to transformation and creativity.
To enable maximum use and flexibility, we defined various behaviors (transform, stage, focus) and states (primary, full-flood, and red wash) for the lens.
Adobe Clean Display
We collaborated with Adobe’s type design team and MCKL Type to evolve the Adobe Clean type family into a display typeface.
Product Brands
The brand evolution extended across Adobe's product ecosystem. We established a scalable, unified design system for all product brands, including refreshed product lockups set in Adobe Clean Display.
UI Expression
Working closely with the Adobe product team, we developed a cohesive UI expression system based off of Spectrum, Adobe's product design framework. Utilizing redrawn icons, flexible containers, and unified motion behaviors, we created a system to highlight product capabilities across a variety of applications and product brands.
A global design system for creativity
The result of our collaborative efforts with Adobe is a confident, cohesive brand expression that comes alive across every product, service, event and experience in the company's purview. Since the refreshed identity has launched, Adobe's global presence reveals a codified and unified brand system that is uniquely, ownably Adobe's.
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