A New Look for zkipster

This year, we’re introducing a brand new look for zkipster. The new colors are about our bigger role in event planning. The new logo has a story about our name. It’s been more than two years in the making.

Let’s start with the colors

About two years ago, when I joined to lead design at zkipster, it was already the check-in app for some of the best invite-only events. zkipster was being used in over 100 countries by the top event planners in every industry. Whether it was an event hosted by the White House, the Grammy’s, Christie’s, the Whitney Museum, HBO, or Red Bull, the guests were more likely than not getting checked-in to the event with zkipster.As a check-in app, event planners turned to zkipster just a few days before the event, to import and manage their guest lists, and then on the day of the event to check-in guests with the bright orange guest check-in button.The colors were so prominent. They needed to stand out at that key moment when event planners and their ushers used the app. But, over the last two years we have grown so quickly to play a much bigger role within the event planner’s work habits. We introduced dynamic seating charts to help event planners easily create any event floor plan they wanted and use that in sync with their guest lists. We introduced more advanced event reports and analytics to visualize insights for event planners about their guest patterns. We then introduced online invitations, to help event planners create online RSVPs, save the dates, online forms to ask guests about their preferences, and much more. The point is, today event planners use zkipster months before their event and they continue to use zkipster almost every day. This changed the role our colors need to play within our apps.Today we have moved from being a tool for a single moment in the event to being the event management software for event planners. This means that not every button has to jump at you all the time. As event planners spend much more time with zkipster, we cut down on the role the orange played and replaced it with a variety of softer shades of grey, beige, and navy blue. We also wanted to be mindful of the event planners’ focus as they use zkipster to create their online invitations. So, we stripped a lot of the colors that would distract them from the design of their email invitations in order to focus on what really matters.

The new logo is uppercase

It was also time for a design update to the zkipster logo. The original logo lived on for more than 6 years. It wasn’t change for the sake of change, but more so to align the logo with where zkipster is today. I see logos almost as visual nicknames for brands. It is the summary of the identity that makes a brand what it is for people. It can also influence not just how people perceive a brand, but literally how they read it. This is particularly true for zkipster. Let’s face it, the name is not the easiest to pronounce for most people.When I first joined zkipster, I hesitated on how to pronounce it just as so many of my friends that hear it for the first time. The original word, created by the Swiss co-founders signified “skipping” the long event check-in lines. But, with the lowercase logo, the k’s stem stands out tall right after the lower z, which splits the word and turns what should be pronounced as zkip-ster into z-kipster.The other thing about an all lowercase word is that it is essentially casual. While everyone at zkipster is laid back and casual, the events that use our products are not. If you are planning a historic auction in Hong Kong or the largest fundraising gala in New York, you are counting on zkipster for being reliable and on the same level as every detail in that event.These were some of the aspects in the redesign that (countless iterations later) brought us to designing an all uppercase logo, that I hope helps people pronounce the name just a little bit easier, and feels more like what the brand stands for today.

Being consistent without being confusing

When I first joined zkipster, like any designer, I wanted to make a lot of big changes very quickly. But ultimately design is not for me or for my design team. Design exists to improve the user experience at zkipster. Whether it is a branding decision, a marketing campaign, or a new feature in the product, we prioritize how it would fit into the user experience above any other consideration. That’s why the new look will continue to evolve over time, because while we want to create a consistent experience, we don’t want to create a confusing one for our regular users.For the thousands of event planners that interact with our apps everyday, we planned a design roadmap to gradually improve the experience without making sudden changes that would make using familiar features more difficult.This design process wouldn’t be possible without the amazing support we get from our users. Thank you for sharing your questions, feedback, and ideas for the best events you wish to create.