The Story of our Company Rebranding and Logo

Or: How to bake the perfect cake

The Perfect Cake Starts with the Baker

The origins of CakeHR came from deep within the needy mind of founder, Kaspars Upmanis, to build an application in order to improve efficiency of management and quality of company whilst managing offices of web developers in different countries.

With the team behind him, they set out to bake the perfect cake.

The name, CakeHR, was a natural fit to the early product as pie-charts were a key feature of understanding employee time off from the dashboard and, well, the application was a “piece of cake” to use and, with the determination of team, we began to gain traction in the market.

The Perfect Cake has the Freshest Ingredients

What is a cake without butter and eggs? It’s just a pack of flour.

In 2013, Norberts Erts joined Kaspars as Co-Founder of CakeHR and headed up the militant marketing department and Lee Chapman joined later in 2015, quickly becoming a CakeHR shareholder and Head of Happiness to our clients.

What is a cake without butter and eggs? It’s just a pack of flour.

With constant communication and feedback from our customers, we developed the application with them in the forefront of our mind and worked tirelessly with our awesome team of developers, improving features week by week and launching brand new features that make CakeHR a perfect investment for companies of any size.

It would be hard to say which feature of CakeHR is the cherry on top, so we just keep adding as many cherries as possible!

The Perfect Cake has a Tasty Name

As we have been developing the application, we were long-overdue the development of the company in terms of brand and direction.

We knew we had to design a new logo and, for the last 8 months, we have been having meeting after meeting to nail this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (or what felt like).

When discussing the name, we wanted something that made our mouths water like, “Sweet savoury HR” or “succulent seasoning HR” but in the end, there is nothing better than letting your gut instinct work for you.

We are pleased to introduce our new brand, CakeHR!

cakehr human resources hr timeoff absence leave management employee free trial

cakehr human resources hr timeoff absence leave management employee free trial ios android app software

“Wait, what? It’s the same name!”

You could think that but we believe that names are based on their definition. The decision to rebrand with the same name is based upon the fact that we are re-emphasising two key functions in the same product.

An application this simple yet effective deserves the name “Cake” and we will always maintain an efficient product in user experience and design whilst our market subject is tackling Human Resource needs.

Our logo emphasises three key points:

1. Stability 

Who doesn’t see the logo’s bold typeface and feel that it is a strong statement about the product?

2. Strength

If there is a market in the 21st Century that needs more SaaS than ever, it is the Human Resource market. The workplace trends have changed dramatically and our HR applied to the keystroke is our stamp on this SaaS Market.

3. Superiority

In the west, the colour purple reflects royalty and high-excellence. CakeHR does not sit on a throne and dictate but has a high-level of servitude and support to those that follow us.

If there is a market that needs more SaaS than ever, it is the Human Resource market

The Perfect Cake is not the Perfect Cake

Rebranding has been a huge learning experience for us but the change of face is not all. In 2016, we have many new features and modules currently going through the furnace because, come on, you can never have enough cake and eat it! Salary history, appraisals, performance management, employee onboarding & offboarding, many integrations and much more are currently being developed right now.

We are working as hard as we are proud that CakeHR is to be the one-stop bakery shop for your HR needs.

Proudly brought to you by all at HR Bakery Ltd.

Lee.

– – –

Rebranding Bonus Stuff ….. well, “bad batches”! 🍳

Of course, rebranding takes trial and error (and sleepless nights and a lot of coffee) to get to this stage.

Take a look at our past efforts below to see how far we have come:

cakehr logo free trial hr human resources

The original logo was outdated (Hello WordArt!) and lacked charm. Something had to be done.

We played with the idea of a calendar but it felt clumsy and didn’t really emphasise our devotion to the HR department.

rebranding logo process logo brand

Something a little more abstract came along when we were tearing our hair out at 3am.

After a night’s sleep, we soon scrapped that idea.

rebranding logo process logo brand

“What is CakeHR about?”

“HR. Simplified” – we need a simple logo! But simple soon became weak…

rebranding brand logo

And finally, that Eureka moment!

cakehr human resources hr timeoff absence leave management employee free trial

There was unison in agreement that this was solid, strong and had that charm needed.

cakehr hr human resources simplified

We hope that you love this logo as much as we do! 🙂 

Written By

Lee Francis Chapman

Head of happiness @CakeHR. HR tech, SaaS guru with passion for H2H - Human 2 Human & Success As A Service.