All Projects
Headspace: Brand Systems
Art Direction
Guidelines
Once upon a time, Headspace was a humble daily meditation app—a content player with uplifting quotes. Its accessibility and authentic teachings simplified meditation and brought the practice to millions of people. Since then, the concept of caring for mental health has become much more normalized.
The needs of members changed as the world began to understand the need for even deeper, different kinds of care – this meant Headspace needed a brand voice that could scale, from clinical to playful.
Look closely, and you’ll notice the happy orange dot isn’t quite so geometrically sound. Naturally, that’s on purpose. Perfection is boring, not to mention unrealistic. Embracing imperfection makes the brand more relatable, honest, and human.
The logo leans into Headspace’s iconic shade of orange, so there’s no doubt you’ll know the brand. Plus, the circle is simple, flexible, and dynamic enough to grow as Headspace expanded.
Headspace teamed up with Colophon Foundry to create a Headspace-ified version of their famous Aperçu typeface. It’s full of little quirks and joyful surprises, just like the rest of the brand. Playful letterforms are friendly but functional, with gentle shapes alluding to the curve of our hero smile. Custom glyphs are expressive, yet can also be toned down when the topic calls to be more reserved.
These nuances make the proprietary typeface unique and ownable to Headspace while still prioritizing accessibility, designing against key standards like scalability, x-height, and APCA visual contrast guidelines.
Headspace has always led as an illustrative brand, differentiating itself in the crowded digital wellness space. The core principles of the illustration style are brand faces, simple palettes, flat colors, thoughtful metaphors, and dynamic scale. Headspace lights the way with the uplifting hero smile, a flexible shape language system, and powerful symbols to tell emotional stories in a way that no other brand can.
The illustrations communicate abstract emotions through metaphors that make tough mental health topics feel less intimidating, and make members feel understood.
Headspace will always find ways to communicate through illustration, but photos of real people, places, and stories further humanize the brand. Instead of telling, Headspace shows authentic examples of the product’s impact on everyday life. The photographic style is unpolished and optimistic, celebrating the beauty and complexity of the human experience.
Photography is candid, slice-of-life moments that convey a sense of intimacy and connection between the viewer and the subject. Often, the most compelling images are a bit messy or rough around the edges—just like real life.