Prefect is a workflow orchestration tool that allows developers to build, observe, and react to data pipelines. Since their founding in 2018, Prefect has taken a community-driven approach to marketing and positions themselves as “the developer’s development tool.” Prefect needed a brand that was modular and dynamic; a system that could range from understated to eye-catching while still being able to communicate complex data visualization through varying levels of abstraction. We worked from a new positioning and visual inspiration their internal team provided and developed a new visual identity system that needed to not only be smart, but considerate of their audience having their own inside language and visual references.

We kicked off the project with an in-person discovery workshop. Our goals were to test the boundaries of the brand personality, see how far they were willing to expand from their new identity, and create a roadmap to solve how to translate the brand and its story to their website.

Taking insights from discovery, we evolved their visual identity system around the concept of “data in motion.” Every aspect of the design system became rooted in a singular illustrated dot grid that could illuminate, pulse, direct, and in some cases, slither off the screen. This visual system speaks directly to the visibility and confidence Prefect provides developers as they move data between various points of their tech stack.

We then further expanded the identity into a collection of animated web assets and marketing collateral to bring a cohesive brand story to nearly every touchpoint of their funnel.Prefect’s new website needed to be easy to manage without heavy involvement from their internal development team.

We invested time upfront to make sure the CMS build and custom module library built within Sanity allowed the Prefect team to build and play rather than get bogged down.