Treams had been building for nearly a decade, won the FD Gazelle in 2024, and built a product that genuinely changes how managers lead teams. But their brand still looked like every other HR software company. Generic, interchangeable, and well behind where the business had already arrived.
We ran brand strategy sessions with the founding team, pushing on positioning until it held up under real pressure. From that foundation, we built a full visual identity and helped with the verbal identity, brand guidelines, and a Figma-Weave based asset system their marketing team can use to produce on-brand assets independently. We also stayed available to their website designer throughout the rollout, making sure the brand intent carried through to the final website.
What we did
Brand Strategy
Brand Strategy Workshop
Brand Personality
Creative Direction
Brand Identity Guidelines
HRTech
01
Introduction
Treams is a Dutch HRTech platform that helps managers improve team performance continuously, not once a year. Their software fits into the tools managers use: 1:1s, meetings, daily check-ins, turning conversations into moments that move performance forward. Clients include tech companies of 100 to 1,000 people, plus professional services firms across legal, finance, and consulting.
02
Strategy before visuals
Treams reached out looking for a visual refresh. Their CTO put it plainly: they wanted to be taken to the next level. The strategy felt solid to them, and a new look seemed like the missing piece. From a separate design sprint, we already had a great sense of what the product could do for its users. The brand wasn't telling that story yet. It still spoke the language of the category Treams was moving away from. So we held off on the visual identity and went back to the strategy first. Not to restart the entire process, but to get it right. It was the most important call we made.
03
Naming what’s broken
The repositioning wasn't subtle. Performance management, as most companies still practice it, doesn't work. Annual reviews, forms, and checklists create the appearance of progress without changing how anyone leads. Treams' answer is a system that lives in the daily work itself. Not just a separate process managers have to remember but instead a second skin.
Naming that enemy set everything else: the values, the verbal tone, the positioning, and an archetype of Hero with a dash of Rebel. Ambitious and direct, willing to say what's broken, without tipping into preachiness or losing sight of what actually helps managers.
04
Standing out in a crowded category
Before touching color or type, we mapped the competitive landscape. HRTech, and performance management in particular, is saturated: washed-out blues, purples, and performative warmth. Most brands pick one of two lanes, cool-toned tech or soft caregiving. Neither fits a company positioning itself as the manager's second skin. Nobody had claimed anything louder or more confident.
Treams took it. A bright color palette. Contemporary sans-serif typography. Rounded forms and soft corners. Man-made textures and layered patterns that give the brand a sense of movement. The north star was performance-in-motion: continuous, alive, always going.
05
Start loud, then tune it back
The directions we presented pushed further than Treams expected. That was deliberate. It's much easier to turn the volume down than to convince a team to go bolder once a careful baseline is set. Starting at the far end gives everyone something real to react to. It showed Treams directions for their own brand they hadn't pictured themselves. From there we tuned it back together, until the identity felt ambitious and still unmistakably theirs.
06
A brand their team can run with
A brand is only as strong as what the marketing team can do with it. Treams had a new Head of Demand Generation who joined to build demand and get the brand in front of the right people. The guidelines had to work for them, not just look good in a PDF. We built the asset system in Figma Weave, a practical toolkit for producing on-brand content quickly and independently. We also developed a photography prompt their team can reuse to generate AI imagery that stays consistent with the identity, cutting the overhead of content production significantly.
07
Staying close through rollout
As the guidelines neared completion, Treams brought in a website designer to translate the brand into their new site. We kept a Slack channel open throughout, available to think through implementation questions and share the rationale behind decisions. That step is where brand work usually loses something: the person building the site wasn't in the room when the calls were made. Staying reachable meant nothing had to be guessed at. The brand intent arrived on the site the way it was meant to.
08
Results
Treams now has a brand that reflects where the company actually is, and where it’s going. Their leadership team has reached alignment on purpose, positioning, and values for the first time, a foundation that strengthens every hiring conversation, investor meeting, and sales pitch. Their marketing team has a professional system for producing consistent, on-brand output independently, from day one.
Related cases
Ready for your next phase?
A 30-minute call is enough to map the fastest path forward.