Mixpanel Evolution

Founded in 2009, Mixpanel revolutionized product analytics by removing abstractions and making data accessible. We faced a crucial inflection point: how could we differentiate ourselves while expanding our vision?

As Principal Creative Director, I led this initiative, starting with the brand strategy, recognizing the opportunity to expand our customer base and market position. My role encompassed strategic vision, hands-on work with the in-house brand and design team, ensuring cross-functional buy-in, and directing the process—from conceptualization through execution and adoption.

APPROACH
We executed the comprehensive rebrand in-house, collaborating with stakeholders across engineering, product design, marketing, sales, and customer experience. This approach allowed us to embed the new vision throughout the organization.

We began by asking fundamental questions:

What do we stand for?
What is our unique point of view?
What big idea do we believe in?
Who are we fighting for?
Why does analytics matter, and who does it matter for?

The answers led us to a powerful insight: We believe in builders—people who create and lead change through new companies, products, services, brands, or communities. We positioned Mixpanel as the sharpening stone for their intuition and decision-making.

EXECUTION

Logo Transformation
We reimagined our three-dot logo to represent both our heritage and future direction. Originally designed to visualize a funnel, we evolved it to represent a journey—like dotted lines on a map—with the X marking our arrival and new possibilities ahead. This visual metaphor also reflects our product's function: transforming a deluge of data into intuitive insights at your fingertips.

Visual Identity System

We developed:

• An illustration style called "Earth+" that signals possibility for builders

• A graphic language using shapes to give form to the invisible world of event data

• An expanded color palette ensures accessibility and flexibility

• A unique tone of voice that speaks to builders with honesty and encouragement rather than feature-focused marketing

The team orchestrated implementation across all touchpoints:

• Complete website redesign

• Launched our first AI product

• Overhauled onboarding and in-product modules

• Refreshed company culture and values

• Updated internal materials

• Improved Sales materials

• Cohesive communication strategy

• Alignment across engineering and design systems

RESULTS

The rebrand achieved far more than visual consistency—it catalyzed organizational transformation.

• Expanding our offerings into marketing and sales teams showed our investment in giving all teams power and simple-to-use analytics.

• Aligned the entire organization around a clear, compelling vision

  Created a foundation for increasing data literacy across all types of users

• Established a sustainable platform for future product and brand growth

Thank you to Armin at Under Consideration for a very generous review.

Brand

Erik Blad
Michael Casebolt
Jun Cen
Alex Coleman
Ryan Howard
Jon Howell
Mark Johnson
Paul Jun
Ka Lee
Jeremy Mickel
Tara Odorizzi
Neil Rahilly
Lorin Schaecher
Alex Shepherd
Annie Szafranski
Michael Taylor

Engineering

Lindsey Bradford
Erik Erikson
Andrew Leap
Scot Matson
Jordan Matyiku Nuñez
Austin Pray
Tiffany Qi
RhoEun Song
Krishna Venkatachalam
Jess Wolvington

Marketing/PMM

Tiffany Chen
Serene Ho
Vijay Jayaram
Laura Krieger
Elena Torres Marcellan
Anya Pratskevich
Andrew Rhodes
Perla Virgen-Silva
Lauren Volpi

Product Design

David Arjun
Mary Carnes
Ryan Davis
Kaitlin Kovacevich
Julia Luo
Mike Murray
Brent Palmer
Kaitlin Siu
Matt Vaccaro
Jon Yablonski

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© Paul Jun 2024