A woman in a mustard sweater resting her chin on her hand, seated in a softly lit room with colleagues out of focus behind her.

The future of HR

Company Personio
Project type Rebrand
My role Staff designer / creative director

Team credits

Brand and Creative John Evans, Paul Jun, Maria Angelidou-Smith, Taryn Niesena, Bobby Jeffries, Julia Reger, David Bonas, Gigi Palatnik, Hermione Grogu, Daniel Gonzalez, Vero Gomez, Maja Tisel, Iva Kvakic
Research Ioana Badea, Sarah Lyons-Padilla, Amy Huckfield, Juliette Terrazas-James
Product Matej Hresak, Will Dawson, Andru Dunn, Pedro Marques, Callum Brown, Alex Guerrero, Chris Welsch, Zachary Schiller

Before I started there, I had never heard of Personio. They are a German company operating strictly in the EU. But when they decided to set up their first US office in New York City, I joined the brand team to help drive a massive in-house rebrand.

The goal was lofty. They wanted a fully integrated brand that united product, marketing, sales, and employer brand into one coherent system. That is a tall order on its own. Add the fact that they had gone through three previous rebrands and still struggled to find their unique voice. They were the leading HR tool in the EU and a true unicorn, yet their market penetration showed plenty of untapped opportunity. That is where brand and product came into play.

We set out to tackle the biggest challenge: bridging product and brand. They could no longer feel like two separate pieces merely coexisting. They needed to work together and speak the exact same language. We established the foundation of a modern brand system and defined how it showed up everywhere. Our work stretched across brand strategy, web, product, campaigns, photo, sales, events, social, and physical office spaces globally.

Our brand strategy was simple but bold: Reimagine human matters. We wanted to challenge the HR industry status quo and what it means for our customers. This led us to build a brand that was imaginative, purposeful, and explorative. We introduced an extensive palette of bold colors, textured gradients, and photography that felt elevated and heroic.

We accomplished all of this in just 10 months. Partnering with product design, engineering, and design ops, we built a cohesive design language. It scaled across product components, color systems, typography, iconography, illustration, and motion. It was a massive effort executed with unreal speed and autonomy.

We also leveled up the sales process. Working closely with sales and enablement, we crafted a new story from first touch to first value. We built assets and demos that helped reps talk about outcomes instead of features. Sales reported clearer value conversations, and we saw measurable improvements in deal velocity and closing confidence.

The overall impact was huge and immediate:

  • Customer Sentiment: The company reported much stronger engagement across the board.
  • NPS Growth: Scores rose by double digits in a single quarter.
  • Webinar Success: Attendance rates jumped by 40%, with average view times increasing by 120%.
  • Lead Quality: Measurable improvements across all early marketing campaigns.
Personio logo mark in white on a near-black background.
Personio core color palette — ten rounded color swatches on a near-black background.
Personio graphics framework — a row of abstract graphic tiles arranged along a Functional-to-Expressive scale.
Personio gradient library — eight vertical gradient cards spanning warm and cool tones.
Personio logo mark in a blue-to-violet gradient over a striped light-blue field.
Personio brand system layout in the purple colorway — a bento grid of campaign imagery, product UI, gradients, and stats.
Personio brand system layout in the orange-red colorway — the same bento grid recolored.
Personio brand system layout in the green colorway — the same bento grid recolored.
Personio SSO login screen — a “Welcome to Personio” card with a Continue with Google button over a purple gradient.
Personio onboarding launch page in a browser — a painterly flower illustration above “Let’s get ready to launch Personio,” with Review access rights and Invite employees steps and a Let’s go! button.
Personio product home in a browser — a “Good evening, Michael” dashboard with sidebar navigation, inbox highlights, this-week schedule, and a profile card.
Personio product UI elements — an ask-anything search bar, task cards, and a homepage dashboard on tinted panels.
Personio Assistant (beta) — a chat answering a hiring question, with an average-salary bar chart.
Personio payroll summary card shown in six styling variations.
Personio Analytics & Reporting landing page in a browser — “Your data is here to predict your future,” with a Start now button and a headcount chart with an insight callout.
Personio out-of-home billboard on a city street — “Humans aren’t resources” with a portrait and the line “Spend less time on admin and more time on impact with Personio.”
Personio brand photography — a person in an olive sweater resting their chin on their hand, thoughtful, in a softly lit office.
Personio brand photography — a close-up of handwriting in a weekly planner beside a person journaling at a desk.
Personio brand photography — portraits of two colleagues in an office, one wearing glasses, one in a brown suit.
Personio brand photography — two colleagues standing together in an office beside a seated person in an olive sweater.
Personio brand photography — colleagues leaning in and collaborating together in an open-plan office.
Personio brand photography — a person in a brown suit in conversation across a desk.
Personio brand photography — a person in a navy blazer smiling and looking off-camera in an office.
Personio brand photography — colleagues working together at a laptop in an office, one in an olive sweater.
Personio merchandise — a green tote bag reading “Human matters” with the Personio wordmark, against a sunlit wall.
Personio ID badges — front and back on lanyards, front showing “Peter Williams, HR Manager,” back a gradient with the Personio mark.

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