The Evolution of VC

Much like people, brands are constantly evolving.

Apple’s first logo – which resembled a 19th century woodcut – and Starbucks’ hand-illustrated siren demonstrate perfectly how a company’s journey can round the edges of a logo, much like a stone in a stream, eventually creating a polished, impactful symbol.

Our story is no different. The Visual Capitalist brand that delivers insight to millions of people today barely resembles the first iteration of the company. Even though we’re still at the early stages of our journey, our idiosyncratic pig logo has already evolved over the years.

Why tinker with the logo? Stylistic reasons, sure, but more importantly, to optimize the logo for use as an icon and in small format situations.

Walking the Walk

As the legendary designer, Michael Bierut, sagely pointed out, a brand is “an empty vessel awaiting the meaning that will be poured into it by history and experience.”

Over the years, we’ve been so busy telling stories that we’ve neglected to fill our own vessel.

Today, we’re proud to introduce three major elements that will influence how we communicate with you; A new website, a blog, and a fresh visual identity. Let’s take a closer look at each.

1. The New Website

A tremendous amount of thought and effort goes into creating our graphics, so when it comes time to release them to our audience, we want to be sure that people can view them in the most frictionless way possible. While the old design was clean and uncomplicated, we knew it was holding us back.

For one, we were frequently typecast as a blog, even as our stories were reaching millions of people. As well, we also knew that our old site design was not helping people discover new content or browse existing stories.

Our new website addresses both those issues, and provides us with more flexibility on how we choose to lay out our content.

Here’s a look back in time at how the site has evolved over the years.

2. The Blog

In addition to all the topics we cover on the main site, we’ll also be writing stories here. The content will be data-focused and highly visual, but we’ll be able to use this space to expand more on design, marketing, and media, as well as keep people up-to-date on what’s happening with Visual Capitalist as a company.

3. The Visual Identity

We’ve constructed our own visual identity in a way that stays true to our vision and reflects the realities of an increasingly complex world.

The anchor of this new visual identity is the VC Brand Grid. The Brand Grid attempts to tame the chaos of the news cycle and derive deeper meaning from seemingly disparate factors influencing change around the world.

Just like much of our audience, we’re visual learners. This branding exercise, while aesthetically pleasing, is also a way for us to step back from the glowing screen of the matrix for a moment and organize our thoughts. What trends are really driving change? Who are the actors, and what are their motivations? Which stories are captivating the public imagination, coloring the opinions of decision-makers, and stoking the animal spirits of investors around the world?

The world is in a constant state of flux and our Brand Grid will evolve to reflect that, but below are a few of the current hexagons in more detail. These elements mirror the stories and topics we cover, as well as our unique approach to visual communication.

What’s Next?

Now that our website and branding are up-to-date, we’ll be upgrading some of the visual assets we use to tell our stories. Our combined thousands of hours of experience working with infographics and data visualization will be put to good use as we come up with smarter visual solutions:

• A new look for our Chart of the Week series
• Proprietary maps, flag sets, and icons
• Smarter typographic choices
• Mobile-optimized graphics, so more people can enjoy our content on-the-go
• Improving accessibility, so everyone can get the most from our reporting

Whether you’ve had our site bookmarked since the very beginning, or you’re just discovering us today, we thank you for joining us on this next exciting chapter.