Konsus is Now Superside. Here’s Why.

Evolution waits for no one. And today we’re proud to present you with the next phase in our company’s continued growth. First up: We’ve ditched the name Konsus for Superside. We’ve also changed our overall aesthetic (for the better, we think!). Most importantly, we’ve made some strategic changes to how we run the business.

There’s a lot to explain, so let me get started.

We’re a design company, so it’s not like we took a rebrand lightly. We agonized over the decisions we had to make, debating nerdy ideas and lofty proposals for months (and months) on end. We weighed who we really are against the face we presented to the world, and came to a realization: We’ve changed.

When we first launched Konsus in late 2015, we did everything under the sun. We offered on-demand creative services and data entry and research and translation. We even considered getting into 3-D rendering. We worked primarily for small- to medium-sized businesses, delivering pay-as-you-go projects to anyone who asked. It didn’t matter if you needed a PowerPoint polished, a business card reformatted, or a landing page redesigned, we were going to do it all. And we were going to do it fast.

From 2015 to today: The evolution of Konsus into Superside

Well, we still move fast, but we’ve definitely refined our vision. Instead of offering pay-as-you-go services to any and everyone, we wanted to focus on the customers that needed us most: fast growing brands. In fact, since February, 60 percent of the work we do is subscription-based. Enterprise teams tend to need the kind of continuous, long-term design help that a subscription model can provide – and building out an established relationship with our customers enables us to work even faster to deliver on-brand design when they need it. That’s something freelance marketplaces just can’t provide and while agencies can tackle some of the less strategic production work, they usually charge an arm and a leg for something that ought to be affordable, predictably-priced and easy to scale. Superside solves that dilemma and helps overstretched marketing, creative and product design teams to offload tasks and focus on the big picture while still servicing the demands of the rest of the business.

Our most recent round of funding has allowed us to start building design technology to power enterprise teams around the world while continuing our investment in uplevelling the already great designers who work for us. Superside’s design academy delivers training, apprenticeship and practical experience, not theory, to our team.

We’re putting excellence in design above all else.

Outtakes from Superside's brand breakdown on Behance

These are fundamental shifts in the business. They require a fundamental shift in how we present ourselves to the world.

Let’s start with the name.

Do any of you even know what Konsus means? I don’t. When we were racing to get the business started in late 2015, we just made it up. It sounded kind of serious and practical. Formal, even. And since no one had scooped up the web domain for our made-up word, we were good to go. It’s literally how I named the company back in 2015.

We threw together a pretty classic SaaS-style website and presented ourselves simply. No flash, no fun. We never thought the company would become as successful as it did, but it turned out we were solving a big problem for a lot of people. The business started growing so fast – by ten percent a month at one point – that we didn’t have time to worry about how beautiful, design-forward or personable our online presence could be. We just had to keep delivering on the services we promised.

Thing is, who we first thought we were wasn’t who we turned out to be. As our international team of designers grew, we started to see our real selves: We were a dynamic mix of passionate, talented and funny individuals who worked hard and delivered like clockwork. We found strength in numbers and diversity, which enabled us to deliver high-quality work at scale. We evolved into a committed full-time, not opportunistic freelance, unit where the most ambitious, hardworking designers and creatives could quickly learn and grow their careers.

We were functioning like a design super team. We worked alongside our customers’ internal design teams. We were on every side of the globe. We were Superside.

The Superside squiggle and variations on our new color palette

So we changed our name and look to align with what we had become: The world’s top team of international designers and creatives. The best place for ambitious designers to quickly learn and grow their careers. We come from a variety of backgrounds. We have eclectic tastes. We take pride in exceeding expectations and diversity is our strength.

Our new brand visually reflects those ideas.

From the stylish squiggle that wiggles its way through our logo (that neverending “S” mirrors Superside’s always-on, always going work ethic) to the bold color choices we’ve made (can you say “radioactive green”?) and playful illustrations that add dynamism to our look, the new choices we’ve made just feel more like us. More human. More happy. More excited to get stuff done.

More outtakes from our Behance brand breakdown

(Find out why we made the design decisions we did in this comprehensive Behance breakdown by creative director Anneke Jacobs, and be sure to follow Superside on Behance too.)

So while we’ve given ourselves a new handle and revamped our look to better match the company we’ve become, you can rest assured that this evolution is much more than a makeover. It’s a transformation in the way we deliver uncompromising design.

We’re glad to have you along for the ride.