Heydays' identity for video meeting service Whereby is designed to spark imagination, curiosity and calmness

Video meeting service Appear.in was forced to change its name after a long-standing trademark dispute. This left them in a tricky situation, and they had to act fast to make sure they didn’t lose more users than necessary as a result of the change. They worked with specialist naming agency A Hundred Monkeys to come up with a new name: Whereby. The definition of Whereby is ‘the means or method by which something gets done’, which aligns with their goal of helping users collaborate. It is also composed of the two words ‘Where’, indicating a location, and ‘by’, indicating closeness. The new name was introduced as quickly as possible while they still had time to redirect users away from the old URL. This change presented the company with the perfect opportunity to create a new brand strategy and identity, and this is where Oslo-based design agency Heydays came in. The new approach revolves around the idea that Whereby is ‘on a mission to give people the freedom to work and live where they thrive’. Visually, the identity is designed to spark imagination and curiosity while giving a feeling of calmness. As a Norweigan company, Whereby has a tradition of gathering as a team in the mountains, and this is reflected through the trippy, abstract illustrations by Icinori. The typeface, David Jonathan Ross’ text and display serif Roslindale, is a reference to the typography of vintage books and has been customised with emphasised curves for the wordmark.