Meetup Grows Up: An Interview with Stefan Sagmeister

Old vs. New Logo

Sagmeister & Walsh worked with Meetup’s own design team to develop a bolder identity that would not only give the application a fresh face, but actually help it work better. The centerpiece is a new logo that is formed by individual dots swarming together to form the “m” symbol.

Meetup’s social network brings together people with like interests within a defined geographic area. Its original nametag logo spoke plainly of the “meeting” experience, but it certainly did not communicate “fun.” The new design has that same awkward feeling that comes with meeting new people, but it is spontaneous and not practiced, unexpectedly approachable and friendly.

Meetup Animated Logo

To discover more behind the rebrand and about the design team responsible for such success, we spoke to creative art director of Sagmeister & Walsh, Stefan Sagmeister.

What are the names of the designers who rebranded Meetup? Who was the art director in charge?

Creative and art direction was done by Jessica Walsh and Stefan Sagmeister, the lead designers were Felipe Rocha and Jessica Walsh. Our designers Simón Sepúlveda, Tyler Comrie, Lucien Ng, Fumi Omori, Yu Chen also contributed.

App Icons

Did/how did your personal experiences with Meetup affect the design?

Jessica and I went on a whole bunch of different meetups, from more sports oriented ones to cooking based ones, to ones where the subject was on how to end one’s life.

Apron

What were your sources of inspiration for the Meetup rebrand?

The main idea for the rebrand was the way we get together, the swarm.

Cards

What were you hoping to help Meetup achieve with the design?

We wanted to address some of the main concerns with the old logo: Meetup has grown enormously internationally and the “hello, my name is….” sign was not well known outside of the United States. It also had legibility issues at small sizes, a major concern now that meetups are most scheduled and confirmed on smart phones and watches.

We wanted to create a system for the various categories and subcategories that would make it easy for a user to navigate and easy for a Meetup organizer to create a “brand” for her group while remaining true to the overall Meetup system.

Posters

How do you determine when an animated logo is the best option for a client?

The primary space where a user interacts with the Meetup brand is through a mostly small screen. As the screen allows for animation, animation makes the most sense.

Besides the main logo, we suggested a system that allows categories and subcategories to be navigated quickly, partly with the help of a limited number of symbolic colorful photography, partly by a large number of duotone based background images that can be easily generated.

Syfy Meetup

What about you, your firm and your design aesthetic is unique? How do you stand out from other designers in the biz?

Formal concerns have been playing a larger role within our studio, simply because we recognized that when we take form seriously, the work tends to function much better. Bright colors are a fine strategy when it comes to differentiating a large number of categories and subcategories. Jessica loves colors.

Meetup Supplies

What were some of the other directions you explored?

In the beginning we looked at several more typographically driven directions, but found them ultimately too cold. The swarm representing the various ways in which people come together to pursue a shared interest, summed up Meetup in wonderfully abstract but also very efficient way.

Meetup Art

To read more details behind Meetup’s rebrand, simply click here. You can also view the works of Sagmeister & Walsh, by visiting their LogoLounge profile here.

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