nZero

Visual identity and marketing assets
July 2022 - November 2023

SaaS carbon management platform

nZero is an end-to-end carbon management solution. Through its product and dedicated team, nZero automates data collection, applies accurate emissions factors and delivers the insights that organizations, NGOs and governments need to hit their sustainability goals.

Along with the Design Director, I collaborated with a cross-functional team to create informative, engaging assets that increased brand recognition, educated our customers and empowered our internal team to fulfill their roles.

Team

Marisa Belaski-Farias — Design Director

Primary collaborators

Brianna Eng — Product Designer and Artist

David Duyker — Senior Product Designer

Daisy Wong — Senior Product Marketing Manager

Vincent Schantz — Digital Marketing Manager

Anna Rindos — VP of Marketing

Understanding the space and nZero

The climate tech and sustainability space is inherently unapproachable and inaccessible

This is demonstrated through its jargon, complexity, and politicized nature. With the issue of climate change now more pressing than ever, it’s important that we reduce and offset our carbon emissions to ensure a better future for generations to come. And in order to create and implement truly impactful solutions, we must first understand the problem. With varying levels of climate knowledge, it’s vital that we meet our audience where they’re at and empower them to make well informed decisions.

nZero aims to empower organizations to meet their climate goals

Audience Personas

Sustainability Consultant

I’m passionate about the environment and creating a better future. So I help organizations and businesses build more environmentally friendly practices, but who helps me?

Has prior sustainability knowledge

Marketing Role

I’m essential for telling our sustainability story and ensuring we don’t greenwash.

Unlikely has prior sustainability knowledge

Financial Role

The choices I make affect those around me, our customers, even our investors. It’s up to me to look out for ROI opportunities that drive the future of the company. Sustainability sounds nice, efficiency sounds even better.

Unlikely has prior sustainability knowledge

Product & Operation Roles

I’m essential for keeping my company’s product offering and operations relevant, competitive, and productive.

Limited sustainability knowledge

To better understand nZero’s brand identity and how it has been applied across assets, I completed a design audit. This helped the Design Director and I find areas for improvement for a brand refresh. We found that:

  • The typography worked well, but the usage needed to be refined to provide a more innovative, modern feeling.

  • The color palette didn’t lend itself to much variation or flexibility when applied to deliverables, and tended to feel jarring or monotonous.

  • Visual styles were inconsistent across deliverables, given that design resources and time were limited.

Overall, the brand identity and its application felt static and more reserved. This did not align with nZero’s mission, values and goals as the future of carbon management.

How can we leverage design to make the climate tech space more approachable?

With the various levels of sustainability knowledge possessed by the audience personas, it’s vital that the nZero brand helps them feel empowered at whatever state they are at.

Given this and nZero’s mission, these north star keywords helped guide us in the brand refresh. They are reflected through the use of color, type and visual elements.

  • Dynamic

  • Approachable

  • Empowering

  • Action-oriented

  • Hopeful

  • Driven

Setting nZero’s sales and marketing teams up for success

In such a fast-paced environment, it’s essential that nZero’s sales representatives — and anyone in the company that is customer-facing — are equipped with the tools to present to potential customers, current customers and partners.

In collaboration with the Sales and Marketing teams, my Design Director and I created an extensive Google Decks template with various layouts and resources tailored to showcase the nZero brand, mission and unique position. Whether they’re presenting to an audience from the private or public sector, this has enabled employees to create their own presentations with confidence.

In addition, we designed and maintained a one sheet template in InDesign that we were able to utilize and adapt for both digital and print formats. These have been leveraged as leave behinds after pitch meetings, non-gated resources shared on social media, and takeaways at events.

Through the creation of dynamic templates for nZero’s most used and valuable assets, we were able to create consistency and efficiency for our small design team of two and the company as a whole.

Showcasing the people of nZero

As a B2B company, nZero’s primary social media presence is seen on LinkedIn where they share industry knowledge and highlight their unique position. However, nZero also aims to showcase the real people behind the work. I created social images to showcase these “human moments,” such as Author Features, Employee Spotlights and holiday celebrations.

nZero as a thought leader

As nZero has positioned itself as a thought leader within the industry, they launched their Knowledge Hub — a blog page that is regularly updated with key industry knowledge from experts on their Environmental Science & Sustainability Team.

I developed the visual style to be dynamic, approachable (especially for those unfamiliar with the information) and rooted in the physical world. This is done through the full use of color, geometric shapes, illustrative elements and collage images. These visuals invite both experts and novices to engage with and learn from nZero.