In the upcoming days, weeks, and months, you’ll see that our brand has undergone a bit of a transformation. In this article, we’ll share how we’ve enhanced our beloved venn diagram, brand colors, and more.
Mind the Product began as ProductTank in 2010—a small meetup with just 25 people in a London pub and a straightforward logo.
As we quickly moved on from our initial logo, we’ve grown extensively over the last decade. Today, our reach includes multiple global conferences, an outstanding training program, and excellent product content, all supported by a vibrant community across more than 200 chapters worldwide.
The venn diagram originated from a seminal blog post by Martin, which defined the role of a product manager. Although it was a natural choice for our logo, it took several attempts to perfect it.
Originally designed by Martin, the Mind the Product and ProductTank brand had three main elements: our signature cyan color, the typography linking the two brands (created by Andreas Carlsson), and our venn logomark. These components helped us develop the world’s largest product community.
At our conferences in London, San Francisco, Singapore, Manchester, and Hamburg, our cyan color became a familiar sight, featured on banners, t-shirts, coffee cups, cocktails, and even hair.
Beyond live events, our offerings have expanded to include training, a job board, a flourishing blog, and a membership platform. We created various versions of the logo to match this growth, but our original approach became less practical as we kept adding new elements. Thus, we needed a visual identity that could adapt to everything we do in a consistent manner. Our 10th anniversary seemed like the perfect time for a brand refresh.
As we entered 2020, our brand team was finalizing a new brand identity planned for a grand reveal at our San Francisco conference. However, events took an unexpected turn…
After a challenging year, we are thrilled to still be here. Our digital conferences have been successful, and our shift to a membership model has been even more so. While we may not be launching our new brand with the same fanfare and cyan hair as planned, we proudly introduce it with gratitude to our wonderful community.
Our new logo eliminates the venn diagram, favoring a simpler logotype with a contemporary geometric typeface. The circular shapes in the typeface echo the circles used throughout our brand, adding a sense of warmth to our brand personality.
While the venn diagram remains a crucial part of our brand, removing it from the logo allows us to use it as a more flexible graphic element. We’ve explored new interpretations of the venn to bring more movement, life, and creativity to our designs.
Cyan will always be central to our identity, but we’ve realized the need for more color variety. Rather than introduce secondary colors that dilute our brand, we’ve decided to expand our palette with different shades of cyan. This decision helps us give each section of our business—whether it’s training, conferences, or our blog—its own identity while still feeling like part of the same brand. For instance, the colors for our conferences reflect the dramatic lighting of the conference halls, while those for our training sessions reflect the brightness of the training environments.
We’ve developed a fun system to determine these colors, reflecting the three pillars of our business. Each service can be plotted on this Venn, and we’ve based our color weightings on where each service sits within this diagram.
Bringing all these elements together, we can create vibrant and dynamic visuals that still feel distinctly “Mind the Product.” Our refreshed brand will help us continue to grow and support our global community of product people in the decades ahead.
Here’s to the next decade! Our new brand is the result of a dedicated team effort, including Megan Sayers from Make Good Design, Annabel Clements from Windmill Creative, and our internal team, with feedback from our community and ProductTank network. As always, this new identity will evolve through our community, ensuring we remain the leading community for product professionals for years to come.