Designing a new visual identity: Mia‑Platform brand refresh

Five hexagons, each of a different color, composed together to form a slightly irregular figure. This simple description unmistakably evokes Mia‑Platform’s logo and will continue to do so for a long time to come. What we are announcing today is not a rebranding, but, in fact, a brand refresh.

From today you will be able to see the gradual updating of the entire Mia‑Platform ecosystem: from the website to social media, from products to documentation. The look and feel of all graphical assets will be refreshed, but without being disrupted.

But what is and why was this brand refresh necessary? What will be the main changes? Let’s see it in detail.

Why a brand refresh

Since the Mia‑Platform logo was created in 2016, there have been no changes to the design or color. The company that that logo represents, however, has grown fast and evolved during this same period. From the small open space that saw its birth, the company has now grown to two entire floors in the Milan headquarters, but more importantly, two new offices have been opened abroad, one in London and one in Amsterdam. From the dozen or so people working then, we now have more than 150 employees and many open positions in the respective locations.

These major changes, resulting from the important milestones we have achieved in recent years, have led us to reflect on our brand. The decision to move forward with the brand refresh was based on both strategic considerations and practical needs. On the one hand, we wanted the brand to more clearly reflect the innovative spirit of our cutting‑edge product, and therefore the visual appearance of the entire company should evolve accordingly. On the other hand, considering the company’s rapid and steady growth, the need arises to strengthen the brand guidelines and prevent emerging inconsistencies among various assets. Finally, but importantly, we wanted to improve the accessibility of our visual identity.

Therefore the choice was to perform a brand refresh. Our vision remains and continues to be our differentiating feature which is explained further in the following section.

A 360‑degree brand refresh

When talking about a brand, the most prominent thought surrounds the logo. But appearance is not everything: a brand is only such when it is also represented by a well‑defined personality and values. As part of the brand refresh, therefore, we also assessed Mia‑Platform’s personality and values.

Brand personality is defined by two main vectors: our manifesto on the one hand, and our mission and strategic vision on the other. Despite the many changes over the years, we are proud to say that these two documents have been fundamental pillars that have firmly guided the company we are and want to be. No major changes have therefore been made, but in the spirit of a brand refresh that gives a new perspective, we have summarized Mia’s personality in this way:

• Dream big: the world is meant to be changed, and we want to disrupt it with forward-thinking ideas. We take the first step, we are brave.
• Have fun: we are able to receive and give back. We know how to care about things and enjoy our time. We build products, but also connections.
• Get it done: tech doesn’t wait. We constantly deliver value, moving faster to be pacesetters. Our nature defines how we create products and relations.

At the center of the brand refresh: the new colors

How will everything we have said so far be reflected visually? The most evident change will be in the logo, particularly in its colors. Below you can see the refreshed logo:

Powerful, isn’t it? Let’s also see it compared with the previous one:

The colors have all been revamped, both in the icon and in the logotype. The selected shades are brighter and more defined. In this way, on the one hand, they reinforce the idea of the technology behind our product, and on the other hand, the readability, and thus the accessibility of the logo itself, is greatly improved. Comparing the before and after gives a better idea of how much each color has changed:

Our trademark gradient will also be updated accordingly:

The colors representing Mia‑Platform’s visual identity have been divided into three different palettes.

1. The primary palette contains the main color that will be used for most assets, which is light blue. The palette is supported by the grey scale that contrasts with the primary color.
   
2. The secondary palette includes the other logo colors, namely green, purple, red, and orange, and will be used chiefly where there is a need to differentiate different elements.
   
3. Finally, the tertiary palette echoes some colors already in use within Mia‑Platform Console. In addition, two of them recall the two verticals of Mia‑Platform, namely Mia‑Care and Mia‑FinTech: in this way we aim to give more cohesion to the visual identities of our brands.
   

An – almost – new typography

The brand refresh also involved the typographic aspect of Mia‑Platform’s visual identity, while leaving the logotype unchanged. The previous font, Museo Sans, is elegant but has the major limitation of being a font that is not universally shareable on different applications. This feature greatly constrains the cases in which it can be used.

The new font selected to represent Mia‑Platform is Inter. There are several reasons for this choice:

• It is an Open Font, so it is easily portable between assets of different natures;
• It is a font designed specifically for computer screens, facilitating the use of our software;
• It is very readable, thus helping the accessibility of all our digital assets;
• It was already in use within Mia‑Platform Console, and one of the goals of the brand refresh is precisely to align product and brand.

The weights in use are Light, Regular, Medium and Semi Bold, so that correct readability is always guaranteed. In some special cases, Bold can also be used, but Thin, Extra Light, Extra Bold, and Black are excluded from our brand guidelines.

In addition to Inter, we also considered introducing a secondary font that would allow us to better represent some aspects of our brand, particularly the more technical ones. The choice fell on a monospace font – that is, one in which each letter has the same width – again retaining the font already in use in Mia‑Platform Console, namely Menlo. This font is secondary to Inter, so it will be used less. However, we thought it was important to have a monospace font as well since ours is a software product that deals with code. Our product is built “by developers for developers,” and all code editors use a monospace font by default, as it helps developers in keeping code neat and properly indented. Thus, a font that invokes writing code allows us on the one hand to show who we are and on the other hand to get closer to our users.

The brand refresh in action

Now that you have all the information about why we initiated the brand refresh you are probably wondering where you can see it in practice. The answer is simple: everywhere!

The change will happen gradually but will be visible on all Mia‑Platform touchpoints. First, our website has already been updated with new colors and fonts on all its pages, as well as the product documentation. Our social media will also reflect the new visual identity: given its nature, the change will be most evident on Instagram, but also LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and GitHub will be updated with the new logo and colors. If you attend an event where we will also be present, you will see that the slides will also be aligned with the new visual identity.

It will take some time to complete the brand refresh on all assets, but we are satisfied and proud of the path we have taken. To be part of this change take a look at the new brand guidelines, in which you will find all the instructions and materials to contribute to our brand refresh on your site as well if we are there. If you were as excited about this journey as we were, let us know by sharing this blog post on social media!