Slack ERG Branding
Employee Resource Groups - Internal Project
Role: Designer
Credits: Viet Huynh as Art Director
The Employee Resource Groups (ERG’s) are a thriving hub of social and professional community and camaraderie at Slack. In 2021 the design team took on the task of formally branding what had been an informal collection of resource groups and I was asked to collaborate with the ERG leaders to design of the new ERG logos.
The project was complex and multilayered and provided me with many opportunities to grow personally and professionally. My primary task was to take stock and listen to the various ERG stakeholders explain what the ERG groups meant to them and the underlying themes that they felt represented the shared identity of the group. The cultural motifs were deeply researched in tandem with our ERG leads and vetted by the ERG members at large. As we progressed in the project it became clear that while representation was desired, representation could not come at the cost of exclusion. This meant that many ideas were looked at from a highly analytical lens that asked, “is this imagery accidentally exclusionary?”
A tangible example: The Lioness was a beloved initial concept for the Slack Women ERG, but upon further consideration it was determined that a motif depicting any kind of biological sex would not be inclusive of trans women.
An initial concept of mine was to bring the ERG organizations visually under one umbrella and provide a series of standardized logos that followed the same basic visual language.
After consideration, this too was determined not to be the right approach. What are ERG groups if not a place to celebrate our unique voices? Besides, two of the ERG groups (Mahogany and Earthtones) already had logos that were beloved by the members.
After much discussion, feedback, and consultation, we landed on a set of logos that felt representative and joyful to the stakeholders and empowering to the members of the ERG groups. For this project, that marked success for me.
Some of the concepts from the initial phases of the project:
