Joomla
Joomla is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Best of all, Joomla is an open source solution that is freely available to everyone. Founded in 2005, Joomla is a project run by thousands of volunteers around the world, Joomlers.
After more than 10 years in the tech market, the second most famous CMS in the world didn’t have any brand system in place, just a strong and recognisable signature.
Competencies
Brand strategy
Brand design
Brand consultancy
Design of brand collaterals for the community
The Project. The Story.
The Protagonists
Joomla is changing the world through digital experiences by promoting the Open Source philosophy and inspiring thousand of people around the world.
The Marketing Team was called to organise and individuate the company/organisation to build a unified, meaningful identity for the Joomla project and software.
As a Joomla brand manager (at that time), together with a team of volunteers (a mix of designers, developers, marketing strategists), I worked on creating few strong brand assets that would facilitate not only the communication of the Joomla project, but also inspire and empower the Community.
The Plot
As a team, we interviewed a wide range of stakeholders, including affiliates, sponsors, leaders and members of the Open Source Matters (the legal organisation behind the Joomla project). I used a range of tools to gather both qualitative and quantitative data which was used to inform the project.
The most frequently mentioned attribute that defined Joomla was “community”, followed by “open source” and “passion”.
A survey conducted online within the international community demonstrated that the most recognisable element of Joomla was its logo.
I soon realised that the Joomla brand identity needed to be recognised in a more wide and complete aspect. It was clear that the logo alone doesn’t make a brand system, but it definitely was a good starting point to give the project a strong visual presence.
I re-designed the Joomla brandmark, refining the shapes and the colours, the kerning of the logotype and repositioning the tagline. The Joomla brandmark is the symbol of the community and represents values including cooperation, fairness, integrity and leadership. To guarantee its integrity I defined specific rules on the correct use of the brandmark across different applications.
The brand colour palette was crafted based on the four colours of the Joomla brandmark and, successively expanded to cover even more exigent requests.
Typography and imagery came next as part of the strategic process to enrich the visual identity of the company.
My active involvement in the community often meant that I was consulted when volunteers were designing more collateral materials, such as websites, banners, booths, special event logotypes, event swag and even the Joomla heart, the tangible symbol of the passion and commitment of the Joomlers.
The Results
All the brand identity concepts were discussed openly with the community throughout the process, and my role as leader in the project was crucial in managing conflicts, disagreements, and discussion, making sure that everybody who wished to express their opinions was able to do so in a respectful way.
The way I ran the branding process in an open, consultative way meant that the community felt they could approach me to seek guidance, rather than create something which did not comply with the guidelines.
This was a very significant (and positive) change, resulting in an improvement across the board in the quality of design work being produced - both officially and by volunteers representing the community.
Credits
Joomla business cards designed in collaboration with Alexander Metzler. Photos by Joe Sonne, featuring Duke Speer.
Joomla stand and booth designed in collaboration with Gavin Hookham.
Joomla 10 Years logotype designed in collaboration with Brian Coale.
