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With more than a decade of experience, Bud Thomas designs brand and identity systems that are equal parts strategic, conceptual, useful, and beautiful.
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Currently booking freelance work for Q4 of 2024. 
Let’s work together.

Nashville, TN

Tango


Filed under:
Brand & Identity, Technology, Productivity

2021


Credits:
Brand Design - Bud Thomas
Interactive Design -  Brian Perez
Strategy - Anna Beyerle Rosen
Copywriting -  Idoia Gkikas
Motion Design - Liz Kelley


All work produced under the agency of Focus Lab alongside a team of expert designers, strategists and writers.  

Via a simple-to-use browser extension, Tango’s workflow capture software automatically records and creates how-to guides in seconds — all while you click and work through any process as usual. Simply put, Tango helps teams document and share their work better and more efficiently. It’s like magic.

Tango-produced tutorials eliminate the frustration of stitching together disparate information such as written documents and video recordings. Their tool can be used for rapid onboarding, internal training, knowledge bases, ad hoc learning requests, and more.

Visit Tango


Tango makes process documentation easy, but what does it symbolize? We helped the team anchor to a deeper point of view, beginning with Brand Strategy. 

Our competitive landscape review revealed Tango had ample opportunity for distinction with a warm-ish color palette, custom illustration, and emotionally resonant communication.



Tango identified the Mentor as its archetype and its attributes as Effortless, Approachable, and Focused. Together, these inputs painted a picture of a brand dedicated to nurturing knowledge sharing by making it fun and easy to do.


As an early-stage company, Tango first needed to articulate a brand positioning beyond its product: to empower users to continuously improve themselves, their teams, and their greater organization. We then worked with the crew to capture the heart of the brand via new purpose, mission, and vision statements. Tango’s voice qualities were defined as Transparent, Encouraging, and Clever & Cool — characteristics that were as authentic to their team as they were to the technology.



From the very first design round, the team latched onto a custom, script-based logotype. Balancing fluidity with legibility, the logo was inspired by the idea of flow state — a place of focus where distractions are silenced and ingenuity can flourish. 



Tango’s previous primary brand color was orange. For the rebrand, we kept this core color because of its distinctiveness and energy, but softened it to come across as a bit more approachable. We added in a few complimentary tones to create a truly rounded palette. 




We chose Tiempos Headline to show professional maturity while remaining welcoming. Aperçu was selected as an all-around workhorse typeface. This character-rich type family displays ownable and somewhat quirky, more narrow letterforms.


We couldn’t overlook the obvious: Tango’s visual language had to dance. Smooth, ribbon-like graphics conveyed moving from step to step, idea to idea — effortlessly and in sync. The visual language has no interruptions or hiccups, using gradations of color that seamlessly transition from one color to the next.

We called it the Flow. 





We created an entire library of Flow graphics in all of the brand colors. They dance around to frame copy and bring a layer of depth to imagery. 



From there we developed a photo illustration style, that worked in part with the Flow graphic. Masking a photo in one portion of the Flow graphic resulted in an intriguing crop. From there, we used a hand-drawn, effortless illustration style to finish the rest of the composition. 

We focused in on images where the subjects were focused, lost deep within the flow of their work. 



“We wanted to work with a partner who would be able to help us set the foundation, and [have] a holistic view of what our brand could be.”

- Ken Babcock, Co-Founder, Tango

Post our project together, the Tango team went on to raise $14 million of additional funding. Their tool was named a runner up in Product Hunt’s Product of the Year for 2021. 






Select Works

Logos & Marks
Luminate
Tango
Speakeasy
Robin
Simple

Contact

Currently available for freelance in Q3 of 2024. 
Let’s work together.

Nashville, TN






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