The Artist Who Designs Logos for World-Class Tech Startups
Kasia Bojanowska’s art is giving tech startups recognizable branding.
We know it when we see it: the logo. A company logo is at once recognizable and able to evoke emotions. Instant recognition in the technology industry can mean life or death, so when companies need a logo that has that instant spark of recognition and has the ability to foster good vibes, companies turn to artists.
Kasia Bojanowska is a digital illustrator from Poland who knows tech. Starting with her family computer at the age of 7, Bojanowska became fascinated by Microsoft Paint and would spend hours pouring over tutorials on the software’s tools. She was always an artist and came from a family of creatives. Her parents are both architects and encouraged their daughter to pursue a career in art.
Bojanowska graduated with a Master’s degree in Fine Arts, with a specialty in Graphic Design, from the University of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland. Her love of bold designs, vibrant colors, and concise metaphors was born during her time at the Polish School of Posters. The historical significance of Polish posters and their enduring influence on art can be seen in Bojanowska’s own art aesthetic. Her love of this art took her from student at the poster design studio to teaching at the poster design studio, where she was able to refine her skills and share her knowledge with future graphic designers.
Her interest in software, however, led Bojanowska to science and technology companies after teaching, where she began as a graphic designer. Her first tech design job was with Applicake Software House, where she worked on creating visual languages for two large developer-focused conferences in Poland.
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After her time with Applicake, Bojanowska made the move over to DigitalOcean, then a two-year-old startup. As a Senior Visual Designer, Bojanowska was the designer behind the company logo rebranding. The year prior, DigitalOcean had held its first round of funding as well as the first Hacktoberfest. DigitalOcean needed to refresh the company’s image and modernize its entire visual identity to reflect its growing product offerings as well as the company values and mission.
DigitalOcean was a significant undertaking for Bojanowska that involved much more than just a logo change. The process required a thorough understanding of the market, customer perceptions, and the strategic goals of the organizations. To get to the bottom of this, Bojanowska led customer interviews and discovery to fully understand the brand’s image. After an extensive design process and many company-wide surveys, Bojanowska arrived at the final new design of the DigitalOcean brand. The new logo was adopted in 2016 and is still in use today.
Her extensive process is a key to her art. A lot of thought and detail is involved in a rebranding that goes far beyond a logo. Bojanowska designed over 100 illustrations for the company’s tutorials and created designs for 4 editions of Hacktoberfest (2016, 2017, 2018, and 2020). She took part in efforts to decorate the headquarters, which kept the visuals consistent. And she even designed some swag for the company.
The most important part, aside from the logo, is the unified color guideline. This guide ensures all fonts, colors, and visual elements are consistent throughout the company, from online appearance to printed media. Now, regardless of who they hire later for design work, all new work will integrate seamlessly with their branding.
Bojanowska, now a freelancer, has helped other startups find their vision in a visual way. Monograph, a project management software company for architects and engineers, was another project she can be proud of. “Recognizing the company’s product focus on architecture, I embarked on a creative journey to infuse an artistic and abstract flair into the visual landscape, steering clear of conventional norms and drawing inspiration from architectural drawings, sculpture, and the organic textures of hand-drawn pencil strokes.” And the results had a tangible impact on the brand’s digital and physical presence. Monograph has recently completed Series B funding of $20M.
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Why does Bojanowska gravitate to science and technology? “I think my superpower as a designer is being able to create visual representations of the most abstract tech or science subjects. I think that way, I naturally gravitate toward working with Software startups and companies and creating illustrations about science for Nature magazine.” The desire to translate the abstract makes sense after her life-altering study at the Polish School of Posters. Polish posters also took the abstract and gave it a visual form.
DigitalOcean and Monograph are two of many startups that Bojanowska has had the honor of collaborating with during her career. Most recently, Bojanowska created branding for the cloud cost management startup Vantage.sh, which recently raised $21M in Series A funding. “I’m proud that my design work has supported these great companies in their growth and wide success.”
Kasia Bojanowska’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Nature magazine, The Verge, and Fast Company. She has worked with companies like Apple, Google, Stripe, AWS, X (formerly Twitter), and Github. Bojanowska has also worked with institutions like the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Northwestern University School of Law, and the World Economic Forum. She continues to have long-time collaborations with Monograph and Twingate.
You can view Kasia Bojanowska’s portfolio for more of her vivid and abstract art.
