ShoutCMS

A visual identity upgrade for this intriguing CMS

ShoutCMS is a content management system designed to streamline the process of launching a new website or online store, through the use of numerous built-in features. However, the previous brand presentation didn’t capture the essence of what the ShoutCMS team wanted to convey, and so began a design journey that would transform their visual identity into something truly memorable.

This project involved myself leading the creative direction for a new ShoutCMS brand identity. Working alongside the ShoutCMS team, we set out to deliver a truly engaging brand identity that would help them scale their platform into a large potential customer-base. Among the deliverables, included a new logo design, the creation of a new website, and many other smaller pieces of brand collateral that contributed to the overall brand.

The starting point

For over 10 years, ShoutCMS had situated itself as a proprietary platform that was used by several agencies when delivering new websites and online stores for their clientele. Because it wasn’t freely installable by the general public, most of the branding discussions had focused on the platform UI & supporting documentation.

This meant that we had to focus on establishing brand structure that could be used to guide discussions on how to situate ShoutCMS in a relatively competitive market. Additionally, we had to consider the need for a wide variety of brand collateral that would be required to best market the platform across various digital channels.

Let’s get into it: identifying stakeholder groups

No brand is complete without agreement on how messaging should be handled for the main brand stakeholders. Albeit from a more technical perspective of branding, this is a crucial aspect of a brand that directs the vast majority of design, marketing, and content decisions.

Our first goal was to agree on the brand stakeholder groups, then develop some high-level messaging strategies for each of these audiences. This would ensure that the ShoutCMS team could consistently communicate with these audiences, in such a way that contributes to the positive perception of their main product.

Some of these stakeholder groups we identified included:

• The ShoutCMS Team
• ShoutCMS Users
• Prospective Users
• Affiliates

Within each of these stakeholder groups, we further identified sub-groups that had unique or shared characteristics that we could reference when creating a messaging strategy. For example, we identified that prospective users were typically characterized as small business owners and entrepreneurs, who could have a range of technical experience with comparable CMS options.

Creating an engaging messaging strategy

Now knowing who we were going to be communicating ShoutCMS to, we focused our attention on understanding their profiles in more detail. This included considering the following for both the stakeholder groups and sub-groups:

• Goals
• Likes and dislikes
• Technical experience
• Available resources

Discussing these profiles, documenting what we knew to be true, and reviewing them altogether allowed our project team to begin refining the messaging for these audiences. We could now propose phrases, terms, and call-to-actions for each audience that we believed would resonate with their profile.

Overtime, these messaging notes became increasingly refined until we were satisfied with the level of understanding behind the messaging strategy for ShoutCMS.

Putting a (new) face to ShoutCMS

The previous logo design for ShoutCMS made more sense years ago when there were less CMS options available to the public. As the amount of options increased, so did the importance of using a well-designed logo as the face of the brand.

Our main hurdle with the previous logo design is that it was too closely associated with chat and marketing tools. The megaphone icon-mark element is now well associated with these other types of tools, and not necessarily a platform geared more towards building websites and online stores.

We experimented with a variety of logo designs until we settled on accentuating the concept of blending a web platform with business workflows. This led to the design of the final version, which features an icon-mark that shows two elements merging together to create an ‘S’ that would become the unique brand-mark of ShoutCMS. Coupled with a simple, friendly word-mark — we had just created the official new logo for ShoutCMS.

Pivoting to the website

For ShoutCMS to become commercially successful, it would require a well-planned website experience that made it easy for prospective users to sign up (and stay signed up). To deliver these results, we began with refining a detailed sitemap that would allow for efficient content & user journey planning.

This platform offers a variety of different ‘areas’ that offer numerous built-in features. We found it important to focus on summarizing these features, why they’re beneficial, and how they connect to business functions when strategizing the copy for the website. Including this information made it possible for prospective users to quickly identify the value-add from ShoutCMS as it pertains to their own business needs & goals.

“Is ShoutCMS for me?”

We also found it important to include areas on the new website that explained how ShoutCMS could be set up for some common business-types. This content would help prospective users understand the practicality of the platform, without necessarily needing to consider how a particular feature might be useful.

Working our way through these ‘made for’ pages, we extended the scope of this content to include featured use case examples of ShoutCMS. These additional pages provided real-world applications of using ShoutCMS, adding to the credibility aspects of this emerging brand.

Communicating ‘simple pricing’

The ShoutCMS team offers three tiers of pricing, a standard amongst comparable platforms, and needed an effective way to communicate their plans on the website. Through some clever styling and design techniques, we set up an easy plan comparison experience that offered a seamless experience of exploring what each plan had to offer.

On desktop, users could quickly scan across consistently designed rows of content to understand the main differences between each plan. When switching to mobile, the page layout changes so at any point the user would be able to switch plans and immediately see these plan differences. These design choices, coupled with useful supporting information, allowed us to deliver an excellent page experience for all prospective users.

Taking a step back to work on some collateral

To maximize the commercial success of ShoutCMS, we also worked on designing and creating additional brand collateral that would be used across their marketing channels. This includes YouTube thumbnail templates, custom Reddit CSS & banners, small visual asset packages, and more.

Considering the bigger, digital picture — these deliverables contributed towards empowering the ShoutCMS team to expand their digital reach across an increasing number of platforms.

Concluding thoughts

Developing and exploring a new brand identity for ShoutCMS was an exciting opportunity to help a passionate team realize their vision. Through close collaboration and frequent ideation efforts, we successfully created a new, professional identity for this platform that would set it apart from the competitors.

Starting at a foundational level, the rebranding of ShoutCMS demonstrates how early messaging & design planning can help teams better navigate common branding challenges & obstacles. These strategic efforts directed the project, and ensured that we only delivered the most effective branding decisions throughout each stage of the project.