First in the Keen family to use the Keen rebrand and proudly sharing that with you. A great next level after starting out a couple of years ago as the specialized unit for financial clients at Keen.
Clarity
Our previous effort to level up had given us a new name and a new look. It helped us expand into Germany and Austria and meet new colleagues and new clients there, like Deutsche Bank. It was also a step up from how we presented ourselves before. However, it didn't do enough to help explain to people who we are and what we stand for.
For that, we needed to take ourselves to the next level and we think we have done a lot better. We now have a new way to express ourselves. And that revolves around our brand promise: Keen creates the next level of your product or business by applying high quality UX design.
Next level
Crucially, and the reason why we use the new phrase "Design to level up" is that we believe in a systemic approach with a strong process. "Taking you to the next level" can sound aspirational more than realistic. In our approach, that next level, however near or far above, is something to make explicit and concrete, so that we know exactly how design can help to get there.
How design can help
Designing digital products is at the heart of what we do. However, it's not the only way design can help to level up. Using a design perspective in innovation, having design be the driver of digitisation or changing your organisation to better support design are some of the areas that we have extensive experience in. And when we added Hans Kemp to our team last year, we added the expertise to leveling up designers as well.
Roll out
With our sister business units Keen Public, Keen Health and Keen Software in our portfolio as well as Keen Design itself, Keen had to prioritize. One big bang would have taken too much time. Keen Financials was selected to go first and the other business units and Keen Design will follow. We're working on them right now!
Looking ahead
I'm very proud of our new brand identity. It will help us scale, grow the markets that we're already in and give us a great tool to enter new ones. Most importantly, though, I hope it does a great job showing people who we are and what we stand for. So that it is a tool to connect us to each other and to our allies.
