Evolving Red Canary’s visual identity into a modern, flexible brand built to scale.
Red Canary Brand Refresh
Client
Red Canary
My Role
Visual Discovery, System Design
The Challenge
Red Canary needed a sharper visual identity to reflect its growth as an enterprise leader. The legacy logo felt clunky and lost detail at small scales. We set out to modernize the entire system while preserving our beloved canary mark.
As a Senior Graphic Designer, I helped drive visual exploration during our internal design sprints. I iterated on logo concepts, helped evaluate updated typography directions, and partnered closely with creative leadership throughout the multi-month refresh process.
In-House Creative Team: Dominic Heidt, Dalton Vanhooser,
Margaret Garcia, Kelsey Compton | Creative Director: Milan Klusacek
Principles & Evolution
We grounded our exploration in four principles: it should be a natural evolution, a venture toward the "iconic", we should think bigger than a logo, and stay authentically Red Canary while cutting through a sea of competitors. We came together to work through logo iterations, testing dozens of concepts to balance legibility, background versatility, and modern precision.
Our winning direction stripped away unnecessary complexity while honoring the original silhouette. The result was a streamlined, high-contrast mark that scaled, preserved the canary's character, and removed elements that limited flexibility.
Expanding the System
Once the mark was finalized, we partnered with the creative agency ShapedBy, to expand the refresh into a full visual language. Together, we built graphic elements like "The Chirp," refreshed our palette and font, and established new brand guidelines.
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The Reveal
Bringing the new identity to life across our entire company was an unforgettable milestone. The immediate excitement from internal teams validated months of deliberate design work, creating incredible momentum around a brand everyone felt proud to wear.
The refreshed identity launched in March 2024.
Red Canary was later acquired by Zscaler in August 2025.
Real-World Impact
“One of my greatest joys of building Red Canary was creating a brand that embodied our core values and was loved and respected by the community we served…There is a small team of people who made that happen, and if you want to build a well loved brand that has heart, you want them on your team.”
Brian Beyer, CEO & Co-founder, Red Canary
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