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Branding

Organizations express their values through branding (logos, interface design, style guides, etc.). We examine how branding can encourage broad adoption of privacy-preserving technology

What's Next For 'Simply Secure'? Part 3: How We Built Superbloom

Since 2020, we've been working with our community to rebrand Simply Secure. This post explores how we collaboratively built our new identity as Superbloom.

What's next for 'Simply Secure'? Part 2: Refreshing our name and identity

Since 2020, we've been working with our community to help rebrand Simply Secure. Here's where we are in the ongoing process of refreshing our name and identity.

Strength In Numbers: Designing to Help At-Risk Users Protect Against Phishing Attacks

Amnesty International asked our team to help improve UX design for PhishDetect, an innovative open-source browser extension for human rights defenders and their communities.

What's next for 'Simply Secure'? Part 1: Revisiting our name and identity

We asked our community what they think of the name "Simply Secure" and our cheerful aesthetic. Here's what we found out.

Iconography of Security

The paradox of security visual language.

Open source & branding – a contradiction?

Simply Secure's take on branding in open source, with a case study on Tails.

Essential Non-technical Skills for Working in Security

Building trustworthy technology requires more than technical expertise. Interaction design, service design, brand strategy, and writing are needed.

Don't Let Color Drown Out Your Message

Visual design makes for compelling software; learn about color and how to choose a persuasive color scheme.

How to Name Your App

Naming software is hard because the name needs to convey a lot of meaning about what the program does to an unfamiliar audience, and do it all using only a word or short phrase. You want something memorable and easy to say – which becomes more complex when designing with a global audience in mind. Android's recently-announced competition to name the latest operating system has been met with skepticism. The accompanying parody video pokes fun at naming as an unskilled and silly exercise.

Why Open-Source Projects Need Style Guides

Style guides specify the look and feel of how a company or team communicates with the outside word. Styleguides.io collects examples of website visual standards that maintain a consistent online presence. Brand guidelines typically focus on how logos are treated, while style guides are more extensive – including not only look and feel, but also interactive behavior, such as the alerts and form templates in the U.S. Web Design Standards.

Ninjas + Hemingway: Writing for User Interfaces

Here are tips for UX copywriting to explain how your technology works and reduce the need for additional user support.

Nostalgia, Trust, and Brand Guidelines

Last week Google unveiled a new logo as part of an updated brand identity. Professional typographic designers were swift to react. Tobias Frere-Jones, designer of Interstate and other widely-used fonts, said "I really hope this 'e' does not become a thing." Beyond professional designers, the New Yorker's Sarah Larson complained Google "took something we trusted and filed off its dignity." The Google logo reaches the level of cultural commentary in a general interest magazine because its use is so widespread.

Behind-the-Scenes: Emerging Conversations from Slack

Thank you to everyone contributing to the Simply Secure Slack channel. If you’re interested in joining, email slack@simplysecure.org for an invitation. I’m especially eager to get more UX people in privacy and security involved, so spread the world. Here are some highlights from our recent Slack conversations. Sharing the Rationale for UX Decisions Check out Gabriel Tomescu’s The Anatomy of a Credit Card Form sharing the Wave design team’s process for arriving at an elegant, easy-to-use form.