Freepik becomes Magnific with a transformation designed by AREA 17

Freepik spent more than a decade building one of the largest libraries of stock visual content on the web, growing into an AI platform spanning image, video, 3D and audio with a million paid subscribers behind it. But the name had stopped describing what the company had become. Paris and New York-based brand and digital product agency AREA 17 took on the rebrand to Magnific, placing that reinvention at the centre of the brand idea. “Creating the Magnific brand wasn’t just about differentiating them in the space, it was about revealing their own transformation story – from Freepik to Magnific,” Thomas Squire, Creative Director at AREA 17, tells us. “This narrative of transformation acts to inspire creatives who are navigating their own moment of reinvention as AI reshapes how all of us work.” Chief Experience Officer Martin LeBlanc came to AREA 17 with a company that had already changed. It had spent three years rebuilding its product around generative AI, its paid user base had crossed a million subscribers, and AI revenue had tripled year over year. Most of the outside world, however, still saw a stock image platform. The brief was to close that gap and make the change feel like a natural progression rather than a reactive reinvention chasing the AI moment. Strategy Director Jassica Bouvier frames the opportunity as a chance to “flip the fear-based narrative that says that AI is replacing creativity with a rallying cry: dare to rewrite the old rules and reach new creative heights.” The transformation already existed within the company; the rebrand aims to make it visible.