Brand Transformation
Rethinking Phenom.
A full brand transformation built around Phenom’s “Pathway to Purpose,” blending a more human identity with an AI-forward vision of the future of work.
ROLE
Brand Lead
TIMELINE
2021-2022
TEAM
Moving Brands · Clay Global
SCOPE
Brand · Identity · Web
CHALLENGE
Phenom outgrew its brand.
It needed a cohesive identity and digital experience that could build trust with enterprise buyers and investors, stand out in a crowded HR-tech market, and flex toward an increasingly AI-driven future.
APPROACH
I started with discovery. Aligning key stakeholders, auditing the existing brand and website, studying the competitive landscape, and looking outside the category for inspiration.
That work became a detailed creative brief that brought together stakeholder input, brand ambition, budget, resources, and the milestones we needed the launch to support.
From roughly 30 agencies, I narrowed the field to five finalists and selected Moving Brands for the identity and Clay Global for the digital experience. Once the work began, I stayed close without over-directing—using our strategic questions to evaluate the work, pressure-testing ideas in real applications, and connecting both partners early so brand and web could move forward together.
- 30
- Agencies
- 5
- Final Pitches
CREATION
Moving Brands created the foundation for a new identity built around Pathway to Purpose. My role was to help turn that foundation into a system that could scale across Phenom—connecting the story, visual language, digital experience, and the work our internal teams created every day.
As the identity evolved, I pressure-tested it across presentations, product storytelling, and web experiences while working with Clay Global to translate the brand into a modular digital system our team could take over and continue building.
Core Brand Expressions
Three foundational expressions gave the identity a flexible visual language for people, technology, and movement.
Thoughtful Design
A Holi-inspired color system gave the brand a more intentional emotional foundation—bringing warmth, optimism, and cultural meaning into the visual language.
Brand Ethos
A flexible graphic language inspired by the nonlinear nature of a career.
Brand Guidelines
The final guidelines brought story, voice, identity, motion, photography, and digital expression into one shared system.
People-First Digital Experience
Translating the new brand into experience-led pages that made each audience feel like the product was built for them.
Modular Web System
A scalable digital system of reusable patterns that gave our team the foundation to build out the broader Phenom website.
- 3
- Brand Expressions
- 2
- Specialist Partners
- 1
- Brand System
Matt was one of the strongest client-side partners we’ve worked with. His brief gave us an unusually clear foundation, and his feedback was always thoughtful, specific, and gave the team room to do great work. We joked more than once that we wished we could clone him for every project.
IMPACT
The new brand gave Phenom a more credible, cohesive presence across digital, sales, product storytelling, and events.
Internally, it raised the creative bar—giving teams a clearer system to work from, improving consistency, and speeding up approvals.
Externally, the response was immediate. Customers, prospects, analysts, investors, and vendors regularly commented on the sophistication of the new experience.
Most importantly, the system lasted. The core identity held for more than five years and continued to support new products, AI storytelling, enterprise sales, and major events.
IMMERSIVE BRAND EXPERIENCE
The identity expanded beyond digital into an immersive IAMPHENOM experience—bringing the brand to life across stage, motion, storytelling, and space.
- 5+
- Years of Longevity
- 1
- Brand Award
Since the brand refresh across digital and physical assets, Phenom’s new look and feel has been raved about by customers, employees, analysts, investors and industry leaders…
