Deel Rebrand

March 2023-March 2024

Role: Principle Brand Designer + Illustrator
Please see full credits at bottom.

By March 2023, I was two years into my role at Deel. The company had doubled in size during that time, from around 2,000 to over 4,000 employees. One year earlier, we brought on a new Creative Director, Jolanta Aerts, and began laying the groundwork for a full brand refresh. It quickly became clear that while Deel’s original brand had served us well in early growth, it was straining under the weight of scale. Internally, teams were reinventing the wheel across assets. Externally, our brand no longer reflected the maturity or ambition of a company rapidly becoming the category leader in global HR.

What followed was a yearlong rebrand effort conducted almost entirely by our internal team. Aside from one external consultant (shoutout to Michael Moulton), every part of the process—from positioning and messaging to design systems and rollout—was executed in-house. I was fortunate to be part of the small cross-functional group guiding the process from day one, collaborating closely with brand, marketing, product, content, sales, and leadership. Read more in depth about the Deel Rebrand.

As Deel’s first brand designer, I had a unique vantage point. I had seen how our early brand assets had been stretched, hacked, and remixed to keep pace with growth. That experience helped me advocate for scalable systems and modular solutions from the beginning of the rebrand. I contributed across a range of workstreams, including early concept development, stakeholder alignment, and the creation of flexible design templates and libraries used across the company.

We rooted the new brand in a set of core principles: clarity, optimism, scalability, and cohesion. We tested every creative decision against those pillars. The result was a refreshed identity that elevated Deel’s presence while remaining approachable and flexible enough to support hundreds of use cases across teams and regions.

The rebrand culminated in a coordinated launch effort across marketing, product, sales, and internal comms. Beyond the launch itself, we built the infrastructure to help our brand scale. This included self-serve tools, documentation, training sessions, and an extensible system that can grow with the company.

This was not just a visual refresh. It was a reset of how Deel shows up in the world, and how teams across the company are empowered to tell our story. I am proud to have played a central role in shaping and scaling a brand that could meet the moment and carry us forward.

Full rebrand Credits: Jolanta Aerts, Jean-Baptiste Di Marco, Tory Van Wey, James Porter, Spencer Gutierrez, Tyler Bradley, Emi Norgaard, Manu Arborelo, Yuwei “Momo” Liu, Cherihan Hassun, Luis Vallejo, Ope Aluko, Ray Hobbs, Kirkland Luther, Bianca Wagner, and Adam Lisbeth.

BTS of the process:

An audit of our original brand circa 2023 (above) allowed us to identify opportunities for improvement. Some of our mid-process explorations for potential creative directions (below).