Glassdoor (2017)Copied

Glassdoor launched in 2008 to let employees review their workplaces, bringing transparency to a part of job hunting that once meant scanning newspaper classifieds. By 2017 it called itself the second-largest job site in the US, with more than 41 million monthly visitors and around 100,000 partner companies, 5,800 of them paying employer clients. It needed a brand that worked for job seekers and the employers recruiting through it.

On 26 April 2017 Glassdoor unveiled a new logo, brand identity, website and mobile apps. The work was developed by its internal creative team with the creative studio Nelson Cash, which Transform described as a US cultural and technological branding agency. The aim, Transform reported, was to optimise the brand for digital and social use while bringing a human side to the service.

The central element is the logo, which the company described as a modern take on its original open door frame, intended to evoke looking inside a company. Transform read it as the glass door after which the company is named, standing for transparency, openness and a welcoming environment. The refresh also included an updated colour and the redesigned website and apps, launched at the same time so the consumer and corporate faces changed together.

Chief marketing officer Moody Glasgow said the aim was to bring the human side of job searching front and centre, and insisted it was not just a new logo or an updated colour but part of a promise of a more trusted, helpful and engaging experience. He positioned Glassdoor as the first and last place to visit when researching a job.

Glassdoor's release also made the employer pitch, claiming candidates who apply through Glassdoor are twice as likely to be hired, and said the site held reviews and insights for about 700,000 companies in more than 190 countries. Many employers, it noted, showed their Glassdoor profile through a Glassdoor icon. A logo that sits on other companies' careers pages has to look neutral and trustworthy, which explains the restraint.

The door is the right asset to keep: it literally spells out the name and the promise. The refresh is competent and sensible, but it is also cautious, the kind of tidy-up that makes a brand look current without making it more memorable. For a company whose entire value is candour, the identity says very little.