You might’ve noticed we’re starting to look a bit different…
We’ve evolved our brand identity to better connect Student Beans with Gen Z students, reflecting what they need, what they want, and what they love.
You might be thinking – why? Well, extensive user research has resulted in us building a brand that expresses our original, trustworthy and sharp personality. And, most importantly, reinforces our mission to empower students to thrive.
Creating a personality fit for our mission
Student Beans has long had a powerful mission – to empower students to thrive. Our product has always played an important role in this. We support students by connecting them with thousands of ways to save from brands they love, and in turn provide them with greater financial flexibility and opportunity during education.
In recent years, our editorial proposition for students has widened to provide additional value around core student topics and plug the gaps they’re searching for. We’ve achieved this with topical, valuable and clear information in Gen Z’s language – like this piece created with The Economist explaining the UK’s Cost of Living Crisis.
This bold and supportive approach resonates strongly, and in executing this strategy we’ve reached more and more students. Not just a little, but by 10 x-ing our organic social impressions in just a year to over 30M a month.
Our new personality – original, trustworthy and sharp – reflects this more proactive and exciting approach in our relationship with students. Our entire messaging house can be expressed in our new tagline – save, strive, thrive – directly linking our functional product, supportive value and powerful mission.
A new wordmark
Our new logo is simplified, yet it still conveys the excitement of youth through the flip of the S and B. The paring back allows for both stronger application and greater longevity of the mark, while the upward thrust of this inversion epitomises striving, the growth period that is being a student.
After creating the rest of the identity with our in-house Brand Design studio, we partnered with Koto to help us to develop the wordmark.
A bold colour palette
Our historic use of teal as a primary brand colour was ditched in favour of a bolder and more unique violet. This pairs with neon, midnight, lavender and aqua (an evolution of teal, and linking us with our past). The fresh new palette is a stark departure from our previous millennial pastels, embodying the boldness of our audience.
A bright and vibrant aesthetic
Bringing it all together with our artistic style and graphic elements is where our identity really shines. Psychedelic gradients, meet expressive 3D chrome and maximalist collage to communicate the richness of the student experience, with dopamine inducing elements that celebrate the weird and wonderful. It’s creative, eclectic, exciting and uplifting. The visual design expresses how we want students to feel when they’re empowered to thrive.
The launch of our new visual identity is just a moment on our journey. We’re excited to share the story of why we’ve chosen to do this. But we’re more excited to continue to build actions towards our mission through our products, advertising and content solutions, and social impact programmes – and there’s plenty more of that to come.
What does that mean for our brand partners?
To make sure that Student Beans is at the forefront of everything Gen Z, we need to reflect what they need, what they want, and what they love. And our new design completely embodies that.
For brands like yours, there are only positives to come from the change. As our design aligns with the style that Gen Z goes wild for, you’ll be getting your brand in front of this audience with a design that truly speaks to them – which can only help build powerful brand relationships and drive longer-term loyalty.
