Creative Brief: Patreon Brand Identity + Website Redesign
Background
● Patreon’s mission is to fund the emerging creative class. We want to be the best place
for creators to make money online.
● The task at hand is to revamp our website to move away from being a crowdfunding site
for indie/starving artists to a more legitimate platform for creators to make real, sustained
income.
● As part of this project, we need to update our visual style and codify that via brand
guidelines.
● What’s working and/or fixed:
○ Name of the company (Patreon)
○ Featuring creators on the homepage (need to improve this substantially)
● What could be better:
○ Look and feel: color, typography, iconography, illustration style, how creator
content is used throughout the site
○ Logo treatment and wordmark: the existing wordmark, icon, and primary orange
color are ok, but we are open to revisiting this to bring it in line with the overall
updated identity
○ Showcasing great creators on the homepage
○ Primary message needs to be stronger (see ideas below)
○ Integration of vertical specific landing pages (see links off of
https://www.patreon.com/become-a-patreon-creator)
Audience
● Creators who are well past the point of “starving artist” or “just getting started” and have
a meaningful number of fans (think 3,000 subscribers/followers/fans on one or more
social media/creative platforms all the way up to a million followers) but still appreciate
making $10’s-of-thousands of dollars from Patreon (so not Beyonce, PewDiePie, Taylor
Swift or Bieber).
Positioning
For creators with established followings
Who regularly post online
Patreon is a new kind of membership platform
That helps you make money directly from your biggest fans
Unlike the unpredictable revenue you piece together
Patreon provides consistent, ongoing income simply by giving your fans more of what
they love
Competition
● Companies that rely on advertising and platform memberships (e.g., YouTube, Spotify,
Apple Music, multi-channel networks, brand deals) offer ways for creators with large
followings to monetize all their fans equally, but they leave a huge amount of untapped
value from the fans who matter most.
● Most of the other players in this space are category/vertical-specific -- they are either for
gamers or musicians or writers, not creators of all types. Some examples:
○ Gamewisp - gaming/game streaming
○ Fullscreen Direct - music
○ BKSTG - music
○ Drip (part of Kickstarter now) - music
○ PledgeMusic - music
○ Medium - publishing
○ Podbean - podcasting
● That said, our biggest competitor is what’s in the positioning statement above -- all of the
random and unpredictable revenue streams that creators piece together, from
merchandise sales to licensing content to ad revenue.
Messaging
Key message
● Patreon helps you make money simply by giving your fans more of what they love.
Supporting messages
● Reliable income: Patreon is a new kind of membership platform that provides consistent,
ongoing income directly from your biggest fans -- regardless of the metrics on any
individual piece you create.
● No compromises: Your fans like your work. Why compromise it to make money? Patreon
helps your fans pay you for access to what you already do best.
● Special access: Fans contribute a fixed amount each month for access to patron-only
content. You decide what to provide, from a behind-the-scenes window into your world to
an early peek at your latest work-in-progress.
● Tools to help you scale: Patreon gives you the power to send unique content to your fans
(based on their membership level), easily create and manage exciting rewards (live
chats, early releases, etc.), and an exclusive community where your biggest fans can
hang out. It’s like having a team without actually having one.
● Over $100M and counting: By funding the emerging creative class, artists, musicians,
and creators of all kinds can focus more on their work and spend less time and energy
figuring out a business model that works for them.
Current perception
● Kickstarter/crowdfunding for “indie” or “starving artists”
● Not for professionals; amateurs only
● Only for non-traditional or niche categories like Youtubers/Vloggers or Cosplayers
● It’s for donations or support or “tipping”
Brand attributes/personality
Top 3 adjectives:
● Fearless but not heroic
● Witty but not snarky
● Inviting but not fake nice
Persona:
● Fearless and witty, imagine your somewhat odd college roommate 10 years later.
Dressed in jeans and well-worn black Converse, he’s pulled it all together and channeled
his intense energy into something useful. A little bit Dave Eggers, a little bit Pharrell, he’s
now a producer at NPR who’s passionate about making sure teens get exposure to the
arts. On the side, he runs a small non-profit studio that provides art and music instruction
to kids at schools where budget for the arts has been cut. When you run into him, he has
stories for days but acts like it’s not a big deal and cares way more about what you’ve
been up to.
Brand imagery
● Currently use this for product design, but don’t have real brand guidelines:
https://www.patreon.com/designsystem
● Have pretty randomly relied on some creator content for visuals on current site and
created some ourselves
Creative direction/inspiration
Websites we like
● Square (https://squareup.com/)
○ Like overview of how it works for everyone above the fold with category/vertical
specific information broken down below
○ Each of those tiles goes to specific pages for those types of merchants (seems
like they may have just redesigned this...or they are running a test of a different
design with a category pull down in the header image)
● Fullscreen Direct (https://www.fullscreendirect.com)
○ Like how they showcase big photos of artists as case studies (scroll down)
● Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/sell)
○ Strong line below the hero about why sellers should join
● Shopify (https://www.shopify.com/)
○ What they do is clear
○ $ counter as demonstration of size & scale
○ Don’t like: banner right below CTA, photographs feel uninspiring and boring
● Squarespace (https://www.squarespace.com/)
○ Good representation of categories and use of real examples
○ Like the large visuals, but don’t like the photography style in the hero which feels
like stock imagery
● AirBnB (https://www.airbnb.com/)
○ Autoplaying hero video grabs attention and gets you to focus at the top of the
page and read the text
○ Like the use of video throughout to humanize hosts/sell the role of hosting.
Other inspiration
● Spotify redesign
(https://www.fastcodesign.com/3043547/spotifys-new-look-signals-its-identity-shift)
○ Artist-focused, makes famous people look accessible
○ Don’t want our imagery to be as highly styled, but this is a good push to not just
do boring portraits of creators
○ While this isn’t very obvious on their homepage, the article above demonstrates
how they’ve put the creator front-and-center in their brand without plastering
Spotify all over the place. We like respecting the creator’s identity.
● Netflix campaign (http://gretelny.com/work/netflix/)
○ Netflix is shown as the platform for a bunch of great content through recognizable
characters
● MTV redesign brief
(http://designislaw.tumblr.com/post/109571745645/thedavidoreilly-this-is-mtvs-design-bri
ef-for)
○ This is too much for us, but we like how they are trying to keep their iconic logo
and makes their more aesthetic more fearless and opinionated
Websites we don’t like
● ZocDoc (https://www.zocdoc.com/)
○ Palette isn’t particularly palatable, typography isn’t very legible
○ Inconsistent use of mark (e.g. w/ face w/out face) weakens form recognition
● Uber (https://www.uber.com/)
○ Too much illustration, not enough showing the product or the people who use it
● Drip (https://drip.kickstarter.com/)
○ None of the featured creators have any interaction from their fans; seems fake
and forced. Unimpressed by any of the creators they feature.
● Live Nation (http://www.livenation.com/)
○ Carousel is terrible
○ Over-usage of shadow
○ Don’t like filmstrip down the right-hand side
Additional details or requirements
1. New homepage needs to lead with a stronger message, something like “Join over 30k
creators who’ve earned over $100M on Patreon.” We want this to scream we are a
serious company that’s going to make you serious money.
2. Need to visually showcase creators on the platform across our diversity of categories.
Creators who visit Patreon need to be inspired and see a podcaster in a studio, a
filmmaker with a small crew, a webcomic with an awesome drawing table and sketches
all over the wall, etc. We don’t yet have this content but we can ask the community for it
or shoot it if needed. Open question: should it be creators OR categories?
3. Would like to incorporate video we’ve created into the site, examples:
○ “What Is Patreon:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3VF1oeL66o
○ Creator features could be used on category pages. Here are some examples (we
can film more/different ones):
■ Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfGMZuEzr7Y
■ Education - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WmnO6V7DqQ
■ Gaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XXut7AQYiw
4. List of all categories (indicating the top ones) and some notable examples within those:
○ Comics & illustration
■ Zach Weinersmith - Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (link)
■ Brian Gordon - Fowl Language (link)
○ Video
■ Taylor Davis (link) - music
■ Jacob Collier (link) - music
■ ComicBookGirl19 (link) - other
■ Bite Size Vegan (link) - other
■ Jim Sterling (link) - other
■ SciShow (link) - education
■ Crash Course (link) - - education, same group as SciShow
■ Extra Credits (link) - education
○ Music
■ Peter Hollens (link); also relevant for video
■ Taylor Davis (link) - music
■ Jacob Collier (link) - music
○ Writing
■ Seanan McGuire (link) - fiction
■ N.K. Jemison (link) - fiction
■ Stant Litore (link) - fiction
■ Tim Urban “Wait But Why” (link) - non fiction
○ Podcasting
■ The Fantasy Footballers (link); also relevant for video
■ Lore Podcast (Aaron Mahnke) (link)
■ Kinda Funny (link); also relevant for video
○ Gaming
■ Bay 12 Games (makers of Dwarf Fortress) (link)
Deliverables
1. Updated brand identity + guidelines
○ Updated icon and wordmark
○ Fonts (typography) and colors
○ Illustration style
○ Photography style
○ Iconography
○ Guidelines for use and examples of application across mediums
2. Redesigned website
○ Design only for both desktop and mobile, development will be done internally
○ Sitemap is roughly:
■ Homepage
■ Category-level creator pages (Comics & Illustration, Video, Music,
Writing, Podcasting, Gaming)
■ How it works (https://www.patreon.com/become-a-patreon-creator)
■ How it works for Patrons (does not exist)
■ About us
■ Help center
■ Blog
○ Out of scope (will reskin internally)
■ Featured creator gallery
■ Legal pages - privacy, terms, etc. - would like to see style applied
Delivery date
● Brand identity concepts: late November
● Final brand identity: early December
● Website concepts (exploration of 2-3 directions): mid December
● Initial website designs: early January
● Final website files (Sketch preferred): mid January
Budget
● $65k
Sign off
● Adam Fishman (VP Growth)
● Jack Conte (co-founder/CEO)
