Responses by Janelle Alanguilan, senior copywriter, Ragged Edge.
Background: Before the rebrand, Granola, an AI-powered notation service, was already well known by Silicon Valley’s tech founders and C-suite. The people who make decisions about the future of technology and innovation were relying on Granola in their day-to-day as if it were their own personal chief of staff, transcribing everything, building historic context and keeping them organized between back-to-backs. Our challenge was to turn this well-loved product into a brand that could be noticed, remembered and chosen by knowledge workers everywhere.
Design thinking: Instead of helping knowledge workers simply jump through the hoops of modern work, Granola helps them focus on what matters, creating the open space to empty out their ideas to do meaningful work. We wanted to help Granola commit to its difference.
Granola is anti-tech slop and anti-corporate bloat. Its ethos is to do what they do really well, not to try to do it all. And that’s what we do at Ragged Edge, too. We elevate what makes a brand different. Every decision we made together was made intentionally to move away from soulless, commoditized AI products toward something to which people can actually connect.
Most AI productivity brands fetishize efficiency, process and speed. Granola is the AI brand that captures the messy middle of work, the toil before the breakthrough and the hard work that precedes success. Granola is the AI notepad that helps you stay present so you can keep doing.
Challenges: Granola's tech-startup mentality means it moves fast. As a business strategy, that has allowed Granola to move, adapt and grow quickly. However, in the creative industry, time is often one of the best tools we use to find the right idea, not the first idea, and help our clients build the conviction they need to commit to difference.
Our challenge with Granola was figuring out how to stay true to our role to always interrogate decision-making while working to meet much faster timelines. It meant that we had to work very closely and collaboratively to find the most efficient and creative way of working.
Favorite details: There is so much meaning and detail packed into every decision that went into building the Granola brand. The natural form of the logo that tells of how progress never happens in a straight line. The evolving, bespoke script that was inspired by handwriting from the founder and wider Granola team. The illustrative style that is inspired by work ephemera and memes you send your colleagues. We’re proud of how every nuance of the brand commits to expressing our strategic message of progress over process: it all comes together to create something truly differentiated.
New lessons: The project reinforced a strong opinion we already hold—strategy is key to decision-making and a single-minded brand. Starting from a strategy with a differentiated stance gives us an objective frame to measure up creative decisions and ensure we are committing to the right ones. When you set out to say everything, you really say nothing.
Visual influences: Granola’s founders, and a lot of their users, love nature and the great outdoors. It’s what inspires and rejuvenates them. That’s why outdoor brands and the freedom and serenity of being in nature heavily influenced the final brand.
The Granola green feels alive and distinct from more digital greens used by competitors. The digital experience feels tactile, mimicking the experience of jotting ideas into your notepad while on a walk. Our art direction celebrates the clarity and focus you get while in nature, and our findings give a sense of the Californian optimism of many outdoor communities.
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