In the pursuit of establishing brand presence and trust within the dental equipment purchasing industry, a new identity was imperative. Leading our rebranding initiative, I shifted the focus from appealing to small businesses to targeting dental practitioners. Engaging with co-founders and leveraging user insights, I crafted a design that is colorful, user-friendly, and enjoyable to engage with – tailored to resonate with the emerging generation of young dentists entering the industry.
Role
UX Designer + Brand Strategist
Timeline
1 month
Team
UX Designer, Product Manager, 2 Developers
Core responsibilities
Brand Guidelines + Mobile/Web Design
Tools
Figma, Squarespace
Phase 1: Gathering Context + Discovering the Problem
Before this project, the first iteration of the landing page was created in less than one week. In order to show that we could develop a site quickly, the Product team threw together a website that appealed to our target audience and showcased our main product offering, GroupUps Premium. Though it was good enough, it wasn't enough for us to provide value in this space. I headed back to the drawing board and evaluated what needed to be fixed.
I initiated this phase by engaging with key stakeholders, including the Founder, Design Advisor, Product Advisor, and Product Manager, to discern the specific problems requiring resolution.
Areas of focus
"The colors were muted and felt sterile compared to our previous landing page. I'm the Founder and I haven't even read the headlines. The copy is difficult to scan quickly" - Founder, Yasin Abbak
"Start from scratch and develop basic brand guidelines before tackling the landing page design. That way you can guide the rest of your decision making." - Design Advisor, Susannah Hailey
"Dentists need to see people like themselves on the site. That way they know this site if for people like them and could help them in some way. " - Marketing, Co-founder, Melanie Diezel
We also analyzed site analytics and saw that users were spending <1 minute on the site and not navigating to other pages. This was the piece of data that made me realize that the landing page needed more character to draw attention and retain attention so that customers could discover our product offering.
Goal
The objective was to reimagine the landing page, establishing a cohesive brand identity resonating with a new target audience: dental practitioners. The overarching goal was to facilitate better connections with a specific demographic—freshly graduated dentists looking to open a new practice—aligning the website's design with the company's refined business focus on catering to clients making substantial large equipment purchases.
Phase 2: Design Exploration + Studies
Balancing professionalism with an engaging visual presence
This phase involved detailed exploration in several critical areas to develop the brand guidelines. I started with a mood board to guide my design decisions and used them to guide the following areas of focus:
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Typography Enhancement
I introduced two new fonts, Fraunces, an Old-style typeface, and DM sans, which better suited the medical industry. This typographic shift aimed to improve clinical reliability in headlines and body text while adhering to budget constraints. -
Visual Mood board
Evolving from free imagery to curated visuals and original illustrations aligned with the audience's recognition and equipment depiction. We aimed to create an engaging visual presence that spoke specifically to our younger demographic. -
Secondary Color Palette
Steering away from a predominant light blue color scheme common in the industry, I opted for a darker shade of blue, and a deliberate selection of complementary colors to enhance trust, loyalty, and compassion without compromising professionalism.
These discoveries were instrumental in optimizing design decisions, considering time and budget constraints, expediting the design process, and securing stakeholder buy-in.
Crafting an Optimized Landing Page Aligned with Business Goals
Following the establishment of comprehensive brand guidelines, the landing page design process unfolded systematically. My approach was simple — create pockets on the site dedicated to communicating specific messages to the customer and provide the marketing team with ample components to change messages and link out to our product offerings. I started with a skeletal layout and content framework. I presented the following graphic, along with user insights, to gain approval for this next redesign.
Results and Learnings
The rebranding and website design garnered an overwhelmingly positive response from the internal team, praised for its ability to authentically present our product offering in a friendly aesthetic. It also played a pivotal role in enhancing GroupUp's brand positioning, a significant factor in our next funding phase. This new, balanced visual identity serves as a cornerstone for GroupUp to be acknowledged as a credible entity in the dental community and healthcare space.
Throughout this project, I gained an understanding of crafting an impactful landing page with speed. A brand guide, I discovered, transcended mere colors, logos, or fonts; it was a set of guiding visual elements that resonated with a specific audience, capturing their attention and aligning with their values.
In an effort to expedite the process, creating a brand new logomark was not pursued. Despite proposing the hiring of a Logo Designer, budget constraints prevented us from doing so. Recognizing the potential impact on our brand presence, if given the opportunity to revisit the project, investing in a distinctive logomark would have been a priority.