Serverless work by Focus Lab®

With legit claim to their name, Serverless originated the movement in serverless development. They make tools and infrastructure for developers to build software with less complexity and maintenance. No more costly server farms. Goodbye, stacks on stacks.

This is groundbreaking stuff, so our task was straightforward: Create a bold, authentic brand that excites developers — one that celebrates the radical simplicity of pure, unadulterated code within the extensibility of an enterprise-grade solution.

We helped Serverless create awareness and clarity around their emerging technology.

Because Serverless is a rebellion against complexity, we wanted to embrace the Outlaw archetype in brand and web experiences. Strategy led us to a stripped-down "Avoid the Noise" vibe—but because personality reigns in their landscape, we didn't want to sacrifice it. Instead, "Avoid the Void" became the brand mantra. Our touchpoints were the words “bold,” “simple,” and “liberating;” they set the tone for the visual, verbal, and interactive identities.

In practice, this meant stripping outdated flash-in-the-pan effects across the brand and projecting from a place of power and clarity. The new brand voice and tone, colors, custom type, mark, videography, and UX/UI design pump through the circulatory system of a liberated community of code-slingers.

We designed the mark, which we called the Counterstack, as a badge for the Serverless movement. The stark crossing-out of the server stack is a rallying emblem you might see on the sleeve of an activist.

Srv Mark Wht — Columbia University Archives

Based on the custom logotype, we were asked to create a unique single weight font for Serverless to be utilized on all branding applications. We chose an altered mono-spaced style font that alluded to the developer framework, but also adjusted to proportional widths.

Our analysis of competitors revealed that technical over-explanation of features and utilitarian visuals were common in an industry dominated by developers. By designing simple, powerful content dressed in the brand’s rabble-rousing uniform, we created a cogent and inciting user experience. Front-end development added dynamic shifts that helped unfurl the story of progress.

Our motion design work and brand awareness video became influential heralds for the new brand. By weaving together some disquieting elements of abrupt change (dripping red paint, genre-defining technologies, and rhetoric disrupted by static), we created final pieces that not only piqued brand interest, they became beacons calling for a rebellion against tech's status quo.