Shopify Tax
A calming brand personality for Shopify Tax. Our journey to making sales tax delightful.
The Challenge
Simply put, tax is a dull and stressful subject for businesses. From user experience to content, tax platforms are very dry and minimal in favor of getting serious information across. We wanted to reinvent how we present tax information, showcase our product, and how our audience feels about taxes with a more approachable brand. Our challenge was to bring the Shopify Tax product to life and develop a new, innovative brand strategy with a full-scale launch across the marketing website, admin tool, email campaigns, and social press.
Goals & Approach
The goal was to create a branding strategy and website from scratch for the new Shopify Tax tool while changing how our users view their tax obligations as less stressful and more relaxing. As a corporate enterprise, Shopify has a documented and built design system with governance for building subbrands under the Shopify umbrella. We had to work within the guidelines and limitations while making a brand that could stand independently. As the lead designer, I worked closely with the lead content strategists to analyze existing competitors and develop a powerful brand concept.
Competitive analysis
Working with the content team, I began researching direct competitors, such as TaxJar & Vertex, and analyzing their existing brand positioning, where they succeed, and where they fall short. With these insights, we aimed to reflect a distinct, authentic personality.
Brand concept
We developed the brand personality of a friendly, helpful nerd who understands the subject matter and is excited to teach you to be your own expert. With this concept, we established the foundational voice and tone as confident, knowledgeable, and friendly.
Design system
I built the website using the corporate design system. With multiple components, variants, and flexibilities, I constructed a compelling user experience without breaking the design system. This allowed me to translate UX into storybook components for rapid development.
Brand guide
When the foundations were approved, I developed a detailed branding guide to document the brand's values, personality, voice & tone, typography, color palette, and visuals. This guide helped to easily onboard other teams to work within the Shopify Tax brand.
Collaboration
In building this product launch for a nationwide audience, we collaborated with various teams in the organization to align on content strategy, visual design, and brand consistency across a variety of assets. Working with the video production and engineering teams allowed us to effectively expand the brand to our target audience in multiple media formats. With this many contributors, working as a harmonious team was essential, allowing everyone to own their expertise and striving to learn from our cross-functional partners.
Video production
I worked with the video production/motion design teams to create assets and concepts while providing feedback for their produced explainer videos and animated visuals development.
Engineering sync
In building our website, I collaborated closely with our lead web developers from the beginning of the design process to ensure transparency about the planned UX structure and address any red flags.
Cross-team alignment
To ensure success, we sought alignment and feedback from multiple teams, including product marketing managers, product engineers, web developers, and the enterprise design system teams.
Stakeholder sign-off
I also presented the brand to chief officers and stakeholders with the marketing team's support to showcase our final concept with supporting assets, receive any feedback, and get launch approval.
The Solution
"Go from taxing to relaxing." We launched the Shopify Tax brand personality of the friendly, helpful nerd and created our content as a dependable, calming source of learning and support. I executed a comprehensive brand guide outlining our voice & tone, personality scale, and visual brand principles. Working with multiple teams, we successfully launched the brand across various platforms and media formats, including web, email, admin, and video. Balancing human approachability and business professionalism, we implemented a vibrant color palette and a friendly, encouraging tone to each piece of content.
Brand launch
I developed the overall visual branding system, deeply tested and implemented accessibility standards, and created various assets for the admin tool, video stills, web, and social media content.
Website launch
I led the creation of the first Sales Tax website under the Shopify brand, strategizing the user experience within the existing design system and designing unique brand visuals to support the storytelling.
Email campaign
Working with the staff designer and email developer, I designed multiple emails, accessible in light & dark mode, to introduce the new website and send informative guides to our target audience.
Video campaign
Collaborating with the video/motion team, we built an informational tax video with supporting motion graphics. I supported this by providing storyboards, video thumbnails, and product insights.
Results & Impact
After launching the Shopify Tax brand and marketing strategy, we immediately saw increased user engagement, high email conversions, and high-performing informational videos on social media. The website also received an overwhelmingly positive response from users and internal stakeholders and was highlighted in the corporate brand guidelines as an example of a successful brand implementation using the configurable design system.
Conclusion
I had a lot of fun leading and collaborating on this brand because of how much joy and delight was infused across the content and visual assets. With a topic like sales tax, it can be comfortable to go with a safe approach and design minimal, serious content to ensure clarity. However, I learned that you can find the balance between creating something powerful that stands out and providing knowledgeable, clear direction for businesses. I also discovered that finding joy in your work and creative process can lead to a better, more human connection with your audience.
