Andela's Brand Evolution

Since our beginning in 2014, Andela has existed to connect skilled technologists around the world with forward-thinking companies. Over the years, we’ve grown from bootcamps and agency models through talent networks into a full-blown marketplace offering a variety of services and a direct connection between talent and clients.

Our most recent $200M Series E announcement marked a moment of new growth, one that necessitated a new way of presenting and carrying ourselves so that the world could step into the future of remote work with us. Towards the end of 2020, we embarked on a journey to rebrand Andela. As Art Director, I led Andela’s team of stellar creatives through a partnership with Motto, an agency that we leveraged through this transition. Now, we’re reintroducing ourselves with a new look and feel, but with the same roots we’ve always held.

We wanted a brand that would reflect our trajectory and grow alongside us

“Andela’s brand has become iconic,” says our CEO Jeremy Johnson. “In many ways, Andela has been an inspiration for software developers around the world who align with our belief that brilliance is evenly distributed. That being said, brands have to evolve as companies evolve. As we open our virtual doors to the world, our brand should mature alongside our growth. I’m proud of what the team has created and excited to show this evolution of Andela to the world.”

From our beginnings of building a world-class talent network in Africa to going global—now expanding into Latin America and Europe—Andela’s community of technologists has grown to over 175K. Our talent network continues to grow today, so we wanted a brand that would reflect that growth not just now, but into the future.

We worked to refresh everything, including our logo, colors, fonts, and tone of voice. Through it all, we wanted to stay true to our core mission of connecting brilliance to opportunity. We’re proud to unveil our new logo, one that takes flight from our old one to symbolize the spark created when people come together at and through Andela to make an impact.

Meet The Sage, Andela’s brand archetype

Drum roll please: I’m excited to share Andela’s brand archetype, The Sage. From day one, we’ve been led by the belief that humans are capable of great change when they believe that it’s possible. As a company dedicated to illuminating potential within everyone everywhere, our brand archetype reflects our curiosity, our faith in humankind, and most of all, our desire to guide others and share knowledge so we can all grow together.

The voice we chose for ourselves was just as critical as the visual aspects of our rebranding. Hours of conversation over the course of months went into our verbal identity pillars. There’s so much Andela can be, but we wanted to hone in on what Andela already is at our core and develop from there. At the end of the day, Andela is a company that connects knowledge workers with companies who, through applying knowledge at scale, can realize their unique

missions, purposes, and visions. We’ve never been a big, faceless company that simply fills seats. That’s why we approach all communication with a grounded sense of empowerment, a driving curiosity that pushes humanity towards progress for all.

So many colors, so little time

After several rounds of virtual meetings and stakeholder research, our new colors were chosen to represent our brand and reflect our personality. Each color has an intention and meaning, and we wanted to make sure that using our color palette consistently across all communications would build recognition for our brand and contribute to a unified look and feel.

The whole internet is blue. While blue often denotes trust, it can also be seen as masculine or cold. We wanted to bring more humanity to the space. The Sage not only shows up in our verbal identity but also in our color palette. Our primary color palette is rooted in growth and sustainability. The bold, mature green color palette is soft yet brings the warmth that Andela is known for.

To accompany our primary palette we drew inspiration from our three voice pillars (grounded, encouraging, and curious) to develop our secondary color palette. Our secondary color palette offers support and conveys trust while also giving a bit of a nod to our legacy Andela Blue and Gold.

Andela champions real excellence from real people around the world

People are at the core of what we do. As we continue to push humanity forward by connecting brilliance with opportunity globally, we’re proud to introduce more photography that highlights the real lives and reflections of people within our community. From technologist profiles to client spotlights, there are talented people driving change with Andela and we wanted our new brand to represent that brilliance.

“Our community is what makes Andela so special.” says Eryn Peters, VP of Marketing at Andela. “Technologists and companies from different cultures and countries come together to build the future—that’s incredibly powerful. Why wouldn’t we want to highlight this mosaic of real people making real change?”

We especially believe that great change can be made by anyone who believes, from anywhere they happen to be. Our new use of location-based photos represent Andela’s global and multicultural network. We’ve done away with pins on a map because it’s truer to ourselves to share the real faces and locations of the people who make great change possible.

The movement is just beginning

This Andela rocket is taking off and we wanted to reflect that momentum with movement in our new graphics treatments. The way we see it, when the globe opens up to let people connect, ideas and possibilities spill out and over each other, creating unlimited open ground for opportunity. We built in this movement to represent that limitless opening of the world, drawing from our logo to push the boundaries of outward-moving inertia.

Victoria Marafetti, Head of Product Design at Andela is also eager for change. “We are writing a new chapter in Andela history and I couldn’t be more excited and committed to it! Not only has our brand evolved to its best version yet but our products as well. All part of the unified and exceptional experience we want to offer to our users. Now more than ever, we are pushing our mission forward and updating all our products to make a solid reflection of it. The revolution is here and we want everybody to experience it.”

The people who made it happen

All of this wonderful and enlightening work couldn’t have happened without the powerhouse team that is the Creative Department at Andela. While we have so many stakeholders cross-functionally to thank, the core creative team deserves a standing ovation.

We also leveraged a partner, Motto, a branding agency that shepherded us through this process, from user and stakeholder research to putting on the finishing touches. We were careful to make sure the journey was reflective of our community, its purpose, values, and history. Most importantly, we kept our customer needs top-of-mind—both on the talent side as well as on the client side.

We’re moving towards the future at lightning speed—join us

From the onset, we knew this rebrand would be ambitious, but we were adamant to do it right. We wanted a brand that would be forward-looking, always moving into a brighter, more brilliant future together. We’ve worked hard on a new brand that has sustainability built into it. For years and years to come, this brand will grow with us as Andela continues to develop as a company.

We’ve always put real people first, and our intentions were no different with this rebrand. People are at the core of this brand, as they are at the core of this company. We intend for Andela to be a home base not just for career growth and development, but for creating real, tangible change in our world.