Elastic Path

Prior to partnering with Focus Lab, much of Elastic Path’s brand was defined by product-centric appeals, causing it to blend in with competitors using the same approach. It was clear that Elastic Path had meaningful differentiation, but needed help articulating it.

Focus Lab’s strategist and writer analyzed the brand and its offerings, and the project team identified missed opportunities in the landscape. The team crafted a differentiation theme — “innovate on your terms” — that captured Elastic Path’s unmatched ability to take the risk out of composable commerce so its customers could focus on pushing boundaries and experimenting. The brand’s love of complex use cases and shared customer success model conveyed an in-the-trenches-with-you vibe that channeled its brand attributes and primary archetype — The Explorer.

Sincere and Ready — two of Elastic Path’s brand attributes — established the foundation for a brand that is kind, wise, and dependable, and a friend who shows up, comes prepared, and sticks by your side. A third attribute, Vibrant, captured the energetic, quirky, and innovative culture of the Elastic Path team — a key reason people enjoy working with the company. As for, The Explorer, the archetype further solidified its foundation, planting the seeds for a story of a nonconformist brand ahead of the mainstream, with an unapologetic, no-limits philosophy.

With these pieces in place — and with some key tweaks to Elastic Path’s brand architecture that better organized its offerings — the project team rallied around a direction that positioned Elastic Path to empower business and tech teams to innovate on their own terms, fully embrace composability, and in turn, never compromise on what’s possible.

The promise of possibility: clearly at the heart of Elastic Path’s core messaging statements. The project team collaborated to craft a mission statement — “To break through the barriers that prevent commerce leaders from delivering extraordinary shopping experiences” — that evoked resolve. And an accompanying vision statement — “Everyone, yes everyone, will be empowered to bring brilliant commerce visions to life” — channeled the brand’s positive energy.

Additionally, Focus Lab worked with the Elastic Path team to refine its four core values: Be Open, Be Remarkable, Be the Team, Be the Customer. The fourth value, in particular, displayed the brand’s empathy for its customers, and complemented its model of shared customer success — “When our customers win, we win.”

Building on pieces of the differentiation theme, the project team crafted a unique selling proposition that expressed how the brand uniquely meets customers’ most pressing needs: “Elastic Path reduces the risk of composable commerce, empowering brands to confidently make their digital commerce visions a reality.” And a value proposition clearly announced the benefits customers can expect: “Commerce leaders have the freedom to merchandise every experience, integrate with ease and speed, and reduce the cost to innovate.”

To flesh out and fine tune the unique selling and value propositions, Focus Lab built an audience messaging framework with specific guidance tailored to both business-led audiences and tech-led audiences. This detailed, quick-reference framework combined with a custom-built, three-prong brand voice, defined as Approachable, Confident, and Inspiring. Finally, an intentionally crafted brand story, created around the voice and all of the brand messaging components, ended with a few lines that made the brand sing:

The Elastic Path way is dynamic, flexible, and breaks the status quo, and we designed a logomark for the brand to match. With a clear and relatable connection to commerce, three boxes arrayed along a well-connected curve represent products, potential, and ideas. The curve itself evokes a smooth customer experience, and the angular right side of the mark represents products coming and going, in multiple directions.

Paired with a custom logotype set in Basetica, the logo lockup is simple and cohesive, with clean angles that accentuate the logomark’s geometry.

Green is the color of life. Of money. Of … go! So our primary palette led with a custom green, named Commerce, and featured Foundation (black), Cloud (white), and a gradient called Composable Blend. Composable Blend, a polychromatic gradient, represents a burst of energy, complementing Elastic Path’s Vibrant brand attribute. The blend itself is a metaphor for how everyone goes about commerce in their own way, and is used to accent visuals with pop and dynamism.

Other visual language elements included geometric pattern work, built from the bones of Atipo Illustrations' Isometric Pack and tightly cropped to express building-block worlds, with paths or steps that could be taken anywhere. Those paths speak directly to composable commerce — the possibilities are endless.

Focus Lab’s UI designer and interactive writer collaborated to build out three custom webpages for Elastic Path. The homepage welcomed visitors with Commerce green and a Composable Blend accent, and boldly announced the brand’s unique selling proposition — the ability to de-risk commerce. The page’s hero headline says it all: “Compose anything. Compromise nothing.”

Other pages included customer success stories that reaffirmed Elastic Path’s you win-we win ethos, and an About page built around the brand story.

At the culmination of the project, Focus Lab’s Brand Support arm built further on the work, designing everything from custom thumbnails to T-shirts. Other elements included marketing illustrations and stylized product images — all customized to evoke Elastic Path’s ability to empower businesses to take control of composable commerce.