A fresh look at Apollo: elevating our visual identity

Last May, I joined Apollo with the opportunity to lead Design and help write the next chapter of innovation. We're building for people, real human beings who interact with our platform every day. That’s why design is so much more than aesthetics; it’s about creating an experience that resonates with our users and reinforces our brand’s promise.

Early on, the team and I realized that our brand wasn’t saying much. It wasn’t clearly articulating what we stood for or how we wanted to represent ourselves to the world. And the product? Let’s just say there were opportunities to make it more intuitive. This gap forced us to take a step back and return to the foundation.  

Brand is a promise that the product delivers

At the core, brand is a promise and product is the way we deliver on that promise. Historically, our product has been highly functional and utilitarian, but lacked cohesiveness and interconnection.

To achieve this, we set out to build a visual and design system that would unify the brand and product. The goal was to create a seamless end-to-end experience that feels intentional, polished, and distinctly Apollo without interfering with the powerful functionality we have already built. This fusion of design and usability became the driving force behind our visual refresh.

How we did it

Redefining Apollo’s visual identity required a two-pronged approach with involved customers at every stage:

1. Brand refresh: in partnership with an agency, we established a strong and recognizable identity that aligned with our mission.

2. Product evolution: integrate this new brand identity seamlessly into our platform.

Our process began broadly. We explored a range of inspirations, ideated on multiple directions, and ultimately narrowed our focus to three distinct approaches. Throughout the process, we engaged with our customers to gather feedback, refine approaches, and validate our vision. The result? A visual framework that is true to our vision and core values, especially our commitment to being customer-obsessed.

Where we landed: Apollo, a guiding light

In our exploration, we naturally looked at the Apollo name itself. Should we lean into space imagery or embrace the mythological origins of Apollo, the god of light? While space themes were compelling, we chose to focus on light and how it symbolizes clarity, guidance, and innovation as this more accurately tells our story.

What you’ll see

Our new visual identity introduces:

• A refreshed color palette that brings warmth, energy, and clarity.

• Elevations and depth to create a more dynamic and intuitive interface.

• Updated typography and branding that feel distinctive and unique, supporting the platform’s future expansion.

• A highly requested dark mode, providing users with flexibility and a modern experience.

Beyond aesthetics, we’ve been building a design system that allows for automated change at scale (13,000 tokens in one pull request!), enabling us to innovate more quickly and efficiently. This has been a multi-quarter effort that will significantly enhance the user experience and velocity of our builders.

The future of Apollo 

We’re excited to roll out these changes and continue refining the Apollo experience. This is more than a visual refresh, it’s a commitment to delivering an intuitive, elegant, and human-centered product. And it goes all the way to the top. Our CEO, Tim, has been a huge supporter of this initiative.

We can’t wait for you to experience these changes and for every interaction with Apollo to be a delightful one. Stay tuned, this work is just the beginning of our journey to deliver a more cohesive, sophisticated, and user-friendly product experience.

🔮 We are hiring…

Isn't everyone opinionated on design? So are we - because we strongly believe in design driving delight and "wow" for our customers and business value for Apollo. And many other complex problems are being solved by our designers, product managers & engineers for our customers.

Are you ready to be part of this journey? Join us at Apollo.io, and let’s build something extraordinary together. Click here to apply now!