CLIENT
Title
Subtitle
scope
Branding
Visual design
Role
Designer
Strategist
Duration
Oct 2021 - Apr 2022
shoutouts
Brendan Dekker
Sophie van Hal
The "old" TimeChimp
TimeChimp started in 2015 without much flair and expectations. The founders saw a problem, time tracking and its messy nature, and wanted to fix it. They did, without much flair, bells and whistles. I joined around 2019 and saw what they had built; a tool used by a generous user base, consisting of anything between small businesses and large enterprise clients. But still, the flair was missing.
Culture
During the entire year of 2020 and 2021, while covid was at its peak, we sat down and started to define the culture internally. What does it mean to use TimeChimp, and what does it mean to be a TimeChimper. "How do we want to present what and who we are to the world?" We answered these questions and more. But after all of this, we were still left with a hole. We had our inner workings figured out, but how were we supposed to show it to the outside world?
Easy does it (for TimeChimp)
Around October 2021, I sat down with Fred and Wouter, the founders of TimeChimp, and collectively decided we needed a new brand. We were already working on a new website at the time, so this was the next logical step. We refreshed our logo, thanks to epic logo designer Jeroen van Eerden, and I fixed the rest of the branding materials. Last but not least, we needed a slogan. A motto. Something that would drive us forward for years to come. Something that would become synonymous with time tracking and TimeChimp. It was then that we created "easy does it."
Research
I had previously looked into branding aspects of TimeChimp and other companies to define various aspects of the now new and improved TimeChimp brand.
Positioning, mission and vision
Our new positioning: TimeChimp Easily insightful
The nature of TimeChimp is that we want to try and keep things easy. When we do stuff, we do it the easy way. But we don't want to sacrifice our insightfulness.
Our mission:
At TimeChimp, we believe that companies with happy people excel and can achieve great things. We love to help.
Our vision:
Offer the beauty of "easy" to everyone, so you can make time for the things that really matter to you.
We refined the mission and vision from what was already present in everyone's heads and hearts. We made them short and sweet, easy to read and above all else, easy to understand.
Slogan
But we were nothing without a clear slogan. Something catchy. Something that represents us and what we stand for. Through an association diagram (seen below), "easy does it" was found. TimeChimp would formerly be known as:
TimeChimp - Easy does it.
Easy does it refers to our attitude towards clients, where we try to help them find the easiest way in TimeChimp. It also refers to our sales process and our marketing campaigns, and it applies to our product philosophy. It's the guiding red wire that runs through everything we do, providing context and explanation along the way.
We can't make it fun, but we can try to make it easy. Easy does it.
This sentiment applies to all the departments, from marketing to product, customer success, sales, or operations. Whenever we do something, help someone, we use the motto: easy does it.
The launch
After presenting this to the founders, I had the fantastic opportunity to present the new slogan and the strategy for the future of TimeChimp to the entire company, friends and family during an epic launch party. The movie shot during this party is up, and you can see that here.
The launch
There are various things I learned from this project. During the designing/creative phase, I recognized that it was essential to present findings and in progress designs/work early and often. Feedback cannot be overrated since it eventually helped me reach this result. I also loved brainstorming with the marketing department to refine "easy does it" into what it is right now, a statement for the future of TimeChimp.
Overall it was an epic project that resulted in a company with a newfound purpose, objective, drive and passion. Everybody coming into the company will now represent Easy does it and carry it out on a daily basis. This project was a massive success, and I'm glad to have done it.
Last but not least, a couple of shoutouts to some people who helped me out along the way (these people are linked at the shoutouts section as well):
Brendan Dekker, TimeChimp head of marketing
Sophie van Hal, TimeChimp content marketeer
Fred Al, CEO (thanks for the opportunity, Fred! ✌️)
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