Introducing Our New Look and Logo
Reflection.app started as a small side project, and the logo we initially launched with was always intended to be a temporary icon as we built out the product, but it stuck - we and many of our users came to love the minimal and familiar sun and gentle waves.
As our product and community have continued to grow, we started hitting some “pain points” with the original logo:
- It didn’t scale well. The stroke outline was hard to see in a tiny icon like for a watchOS application.
- It was easy to overlook. While at Apple’s Foundations accelerator, we got early feedback from Apple’s editors that a bolder icon would likely perform better. (TLDR; They were right, and we ran the tests to confirm!)
- Never felt fully grounded. Without a bounding shape, the logo was always ‘floating’ and never fully looked right with our wordmark lockup, in the app or on our site.
- It lacked depth. A bit more subjective, but with the introduction of the guides platform, the old one-dimensional logo just felt like it no longer represented the dynamic nature of the new app and our vision of building the world's largest community-powered guided journaling platform.
So with the help of Carrie Keymel, an incredibly talented illustrator, artist, and the Creative Director at Holstee — we embarked on a journey to find a new logo.
We were looking for a logo that:
- Paid homage to the original sun and waves
- Was bold yet calming
- Was visibly distinct and scaled well
- And, importantly, something we all loved
After a lot of exploration…
Carrie shared this:
“Once we pretty thoroughly pushed and pulled the idea and feeling we were aiming for with the rebrand, coming back to the simple shape of the sun encompassing the wave felt like coming home…I love how this new mark invites someone to go below the surface but in a warm, gentle, and supported way.” — Carrie Keymel
The entire team was in love. It felt like the perfect balance of boldness and calmness while still being reminiscent of our original waves and sun.
But we were curious; How much impact could an app icon really have?
So we ran an A/B test in the Google Play Store. And the results shocked us.
The new design, in addition to being our favorite, performed 1.3x better in getting first-time installs from new users.
We had tested 3 other app icons, and this icon outperformed them all.
We were already smitten with the new design, but seeing how well it performed was icing on the cake.
The new logo was launched along with our V4 Release which also included new typography, a new primary color, a new main navigation, and the relaunch of our website.
Needless to say, we are feeling fresh :-)
If you haven't yet, update to v4 and experience all the updates first hand!
Reflection.app started as a small side project, and the logo we initially launched with was always intended to be a temporary icon as we built out the product, but it stuck - we and many of our users came to love the minimal and familiar sun and gentle waves.
As our product and community have continued to grow, we started hitting some “pain points” with the original logo:
- It didn’t scale well. The stroke outline was hard to see in a tiny icon like for a watchOS application.
- It was easy to overlook. While at Apple’s Foundations accelerator, we got early feedback from Apple’s editors that a bolder icon would likely perform better. (TLDR; They were right, and we ran the tests to confirm!)
- Never felt fully grounded. Without a bounding shape, the logo was always ‘floating’ and never fully looked right with our wordmark lockup, in the app or on our site.
- It lacked depth. A bit more subjective, but with the introduction of the guides platform, the old one-dimensional logo just felt like it no longer represented the dynamic nature of the new app and our vision of building the world's largest community-powered guided journaling platform.
So with the help of Carrie Keymel, an incredibly talented illustrator, artist, and the Creative Director at Holstee — we embarked on a journey to find a new logo.
We were looking for a logo that:
- Paid homage to the original sun and waves
- Was bold yet calming
- Was visibly distinct and scaled well
- And, importantly, something we all loved
After a lot of exploration…
Carrie shared this:
“Once we pretty thoroughly pushed and pulled the idea and feeling we were aiming for with the rebrand, coming back to the simple shape of the sun encompassing the wave felt like coming home…I love how this new mark invites someone to go below the surface but in a warm, gentle, and supported way.” — Carrie Keymel
The entire team was in love. It felt like the perfect balance of boldness and calmness while still being reminiscent of our original waves and sun.
But we were curious; How much impact could an app icon really have?
So we ran an A/B test in the Google Play Store. And the results shocked us.
The new design, in addition to being our favorite, performed 1.3x better in getting first-time installs from new users.
We had tested 3 other app icons, and this icon outperformed them all.
We were already smitten with the new design, but seeing how well it performed was icing on the cake.
The new logo was launched along with our V4 Release which also included new typography, a new primary color, a new main navigation, and the relaunch of our website.
Needless to say, we are feeling fresh :-)
If you haven't yet, update to v4 and experience all the updates first hand!
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