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To Redesign Its Brand, Etsy Went Back to Square One

The SYLVAIN and Upstatement designers behind the relaunch walk through their collaborative process.

Etsy app mockups with product listings, reviews, shop icons, and home decor images. Text reads, Keep Commerce Human. Includes orange, gold, and purple design elements and Etsy branding.

Published

Topic

Collaboration, Innovation

Companies

SYLVAIN, Upstatement

Two decades in, Etsy had grown large enough that its brand could no longer keep pace with itself. E‑commerce had gotten more crowded and more efficient, and these changes were obscuring Etsy as a destination for discovery, curiosity and exploration. 

An earlier brand refresh didn’t better connect shoppers to Etsy. This go-round, Etsy tasked SYLVAIN and Upstatement with solving the problem together, from the ground up.

SYLVAIN understood that Etsy was no longer a marketplace, but a doorway into the vastness and particularity of what its sellers make, reframing the brand as a gateway to ​“The Universe of Special.” For SYLVAIN’s Courtney Perets and Upstatement’s Kim Miller, who served as project leads, every decision that followed was filtered through three principles: quality, originality, humanity. 

Perets remembers: ​“Throughout our exploratory process, our team at SYLVAIN was exploring very wide and gesturally. I remember being so impressed each time we regrouped at the way Kim would iterate with us and visualize what we were doing as tangible digital moments, cleverly giving purpose to our chaos.” 

Says Miller, ​“It was a crash course in a new company, a new process, a bunch of new people, swirling in a shared visual space for hours, but it was so fun! It felt like there were so many ideas it was hard to shape them; a problem of abundance.”

Here, the two share a few key moments from the project. 

Sylvain and Upstatement for Etsy work: A bathroom shelf holds a red clock, wooden comb, dish with soap, toothbrush in a glass, green bottle, yellow sponge, and neatly folded towels against a blue tiled wall.
Perets: Kim gave a function to our shorthand E, using it as an ​“Etsy Picks” identifier on the platform. 
Sylvain and Upstatement for Etsy work: A collage of colorful frames features various objects, including furniture, art, clothing, food, a smiling person, and a 30% off sale badge, with Made for you in the center.
Miller: When the special shapes entered the scene, it was a big moment. Courtney says they came from pictures of flowers. I woke up one morning and BAM, there they were in a primordial state. It was magic. 

I was eager to pick them up and put them everywhere in digital screens. We even made a ​“when to use a special shape” decision tree that still makes me laugh. 
Sylvain and Upstatement for Etsy work: A collage with a list of home goods, search icon, profile with reviews, stylized table setting, a hand opening a box, and a heart symbol on colorful squares.
Perets: Most of the work we did was with the product in mind. When I look back, I’m so delighted at how the collaborative process lent itself to a functional toolkit that still imbued the magic and specialness of the brand. 

I don’t think it would’ve been possible without the strategic thinking and design prowess of Kim and (former product director) Britt Dalton at Upstatement. Over a year later, I’m still so proud of this work!

For more about the redesign, check out this story in Print mag.