Wolff Olins Champions Small Businesses with New Identity for Website Builder Jimdo

The identity champions the idea that Jimdo is ‘big on small’, visualising how straightforward it is for the self-employed to thrive online and puncturing the pomposity of big business and Big Tech. 

Jimdo started out as just a couple of guys in a farmhouse in Cuxhaven - a town outside Bremen, Germany. Fast forward to 2021 and Jimdo is now helping millions of self-employed people worldwide. Over 25 million websites have been built with Jimdo since 2007.

Having started out around the same time as Weebly and Wix, Jimdo’s founders knew that to stand out they had to choose a different path to their competitors, who were carving out a large slice of the market through high profile marketing campaigns. As part of this unique journey, Jimdo has now developed a bold new identity in partnership with global brand consultancy, Wolff Olins. 

The new identity reflects Jimdo’s support for entrepreneurs as they emerge from the pandemic, and it supports the launch of new and disruptive technologies, such as Jimdo’s AI-driven website builder, codenamed Dolphin. 

“We’re taking a chance on something new and exciting,” says Jimdo CEO, Matthias Henze. “But we’re driven by our mission to unleash the power of small businesses, and with Wolff Olins we saw an opportunity to make website creation feel effortless and more accessible.” 

“Some of our competitors are much bigger, but that doesn’t bother us,” says Matthias. ‘We believe that in the long run, the company with the best product and strongest core values will come out on top. This new identity signals that loud and clear: we are big on small.” 

Stewart Davies, creative director at Wolff Olins, says of the new identity: “The overarching creative concept is to make small businesses feel big. We wanted to create a brand that captured Jimdo’s spirit, which is all about making the internet accessible and rewarding for busy business owners. That’s why the brand feels highly interactive - suggesting you’re in control of it. You’re in the driving seat now.” 

Visually, Wolff Olins wanted to make the seemingly complex world of UX wireframes and complicated lines of code feel human. 

As Davies explains, “We distilled UX design language down to simple tools and blocks - which helps users to feel they can easily manipulate things with one click or swipe.

Even the logo has the sense of a simple ‘button click’ interaction, thanks to the use of a stroke to frame it, which creates a feeling of ‘let’s get started’.” 

Type is also a big part of the ‘big on small’ identity. “For messaging we used a typeface called Fat Frank, as we wanted the headline typography to feel as rebellious as possible, referencing campaign posters that feel like a call to arms. It’s attention grabbing. But it also has a hand-rendered quality to the letter-forms so it still feels human, rather than shouty. This sets it apart from competitors that are often painfully considered, earnest and a bit bland.” 

The photography, art direction and style reinforces a sense of closeness and partnership - with small business owners doing what they love, in the moment, shot with atmospheric lighting and soft dark shadows to create a sense of intimacy, all at eye level with the customer.

David Stevens, strategist and writer at Wolff Olins says of the brand’s new personality: “We loved the idea of a highly innovative tech brand having a voice that was super straightforward and almost comically blunt. Speaking plainly and confidently helps Jimdo to puncture the pomposity of Big Tech and it reassures small business owners that getting themselves online won’t be a pain in the neck. The last thing they want is a load of technical jargon to wade through online - especially as they’re trying to get back to business post-pandemic.