Role
Brand & visual
design · web UI
design · web UI
Visual design case study
•
2025
•
Brand & web · concept
A premium brand for the people who build companies
Protis Global is an executive-search firm for the consumer world — placing the leaders behind brands like poppi, Spindrift and Mark Anthony. Its track record is elite; its website read like a generic agency. I rebuilt the visual layer as an enterprise brand system: a disciplined black-and-gold palette, a typographic voice with executive presence, the firm's ascending-arrow mark turned into a reusable device, and a homepage that finally matches the calibre of the work.
The brief
Match the brand to the reputation
For nearly three decades Protis Global has been the search partner behind some of the fastest-growing names in food, beverage and consumer products. The credibility is real — but the digital brand undersold it: a flat layout, soft greys, stock office photography and a logo that lost its best asset, the ascending arrow, in busy headers.
The goal was a system, not a skin — an identity and web language that could sit in the same room as Korn Ferry or Spencer Stuart while feeling sharper and more human. Anchored in the equity Protis already owned: an authoritative black, a single confident gold, and that upward-moving mark.
01 — Positioning
A clear idea to design around
Before a single pixel, the brand needed a spine. Protis doesn't sell résumés — it builds the leadership teams that turn challenger brands into category leaders. Everything visual ladders up to one promise.
Brand idea
Building companies.
Changing lives.
Changing lives.
Positioned as the specialist challenger to the legacy search giants: deeper in consumer goods, faster than the incumbents, and unmistakably human about the careers it shapes.
01
Authority, earned
Lead with proof — names, tenure, retention — never with adjectives.
02
Momentum
Every visual moves upward and forward. The arrow is the through-line.
03
Human at the top
Executive, not cold. Careers and people, not transactions.
02 — Identity
Logo system
The wordmark stays — it's recognised and well-built. The work was systematising it: extracting the ascending arrow into a standalone mark, defining a compact gold monogram for digital and favicons, and writing the rules for placement across every ground.
Before · wordmark only, mark hidden in headerscurrent
PROTIS.Global · Executive Search
After · monogram + wordmark lockupsystematised
The mark, set free
The ascending arrow becomes a standalone device — usable as an avatar, favicon or section marker, no wordmark required.
Protected clearspace
Minimum padding equal to the height of the monogram keeps the lockup uncrowded in dense navigation.
One mark, four grounds
Defined treatments on ink, gold, light and photographic backgrounds — never guesswork.
On ink
On gold
On light
Reversed
03 — Color
Colour system
Two anchors do almost all the work — a near-black ink and a single confident gold drawn from the arrow tip. Warm neutrals replace the old cold greys, and gold stays a spark, never a flood. All pairings tuned to pass AA contrast on web.
Primary
Signature
Surface
Paper
04 — Typography
Type & voice
A single grotesque carries the brand — geometric enough to feel modern, confident enough for executive headlines. Display weights set tight for presence; body stays open for long-form leadership stories. A mono tags data and labels.
Display / 72Building companies
Heading / 44Executive search
Subhead / 28Leadership for consumer brands
Body / 18We place the operators, founders and functional leaders who turn challenger brands into category leaders — across food, beverage, beauty and emerging consumer categories.
Mono / 14RETAINED SEARCH · C-SUITE · SINCE 1998
Specimen
AaBbGgPpRrSs 0123456789 & %
12141618222836445672
05 — Graphics
Motif & iconography
The ascending arrow is the brand's whole story in one shape — so it became the engine. A repeating ascent pattern textures dark surfaces; a line-icon set on a consistent 2px grid uses ink as the structure and gold as the single point of emphasis.
Retained SearchC-suite mandates
Leadership TeamsBuild-outs
Growth AdvisoryScale-up talent
SuccessionContinuity planning
Global ReachCross-market
Industry InsightMarket intel
Culture FitValues mapping
RetentionLong-term fit
// Ascent pattern — texture for dark hero & section breaks
// Gold dot grid — calm surface texture
06 — Competitive landscape
Standing next to the giants
I audited the five legacy search firms Protis competes against for mandates. They win on scale and heritage — but their digital brands are interchangeable, corporate and cold. The opening: a specialist voice that feels sharper, faster and more human. Gold row is where Protis can own ground.
| Firm | Focus | Web experience | Tone | Distinctiveness |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Korn Ferry | Generalist · global | Dense, corporate | Institutional | |
| Spencer Stuart | Board & C-suite | Editorial, restrained | Formal | |
| Heidrick & Struggles | Leadership advisory | Content-heavy | Consultative | |
| Russell Reynolds | Sustainability · board | Polished, generic | Measured | |
| Egon Zehnder | CEO & board | Minimal, austere | Exclusive | |
| Protis Global | Consumer goods specialist | Bold, human, fast | Confident · warm |
// Audit of public homepages & brand surfaces, 2025 · distinctiveness scored on memorability of visual voice
07 — Information architecture
A sharper map
The old navigation buried the proof. The restructure leads with outcomes — who Protis builds teams for and the results — and pulls candidates into their own clear track, so neither audience has to dig.
Before — flat & service-led
▣ protisglobal.com
- Home
- About
- Services one long page
- Industries buried in body copy
- Blog
- Contact
After — outcome & audience-led
▣ protisglobal.com
- Home
- For CompaniesnewSearch · advisory · team build-outs
- For CandidatesnewDedicated track for leaders
- IndustriesFood · beverage · beauty · CPG
- Proof & ResultsnewPlacements · retention · client names
- Insightswas "Blog"
- About & Contact
08 — In context
The system, applied
Identity, palette, type and motif brought together across the responsive build — the homepage on desktop, the candidate-facing experience on mobile. Drop in the real screens.
Desktop — homepage & proof
Mobile — candidate track & contact
Voice — black · gold · ascent
25+
years placing
consumer leaders
consumer leaders
90%
of placements retained
past one year
past one year
100+
leaders placed in a single
enterprise turnaround
enterprise turnaround
1↗
brand idea carried
across every surface
across every surface
09 — Outcomes
What the redesign does
Measured as brand and experience outcomes, not vanity metrics — the shifts a hiring committee or a candidate actually feels.
A
Executive presence
A black-and-gold system that reads at the same level as the legacy giants — and more memorable than any of them.
B
Proof, up front
Client names, tenure and retention lead the story instead of hiding behind service copy.
C
Two clear audiences
Companies and candidates each get a dedicated path — neither has to dig for the right door.
D
A scalable language
Tokens, type scale and the ascent motif give the team a kit to extend across decks, social and email.
E
Human, not cold
Warm neutrals and real photography replace stock-corporate handshakes and grey gradients.
F
Mobile-first clarity
The candidate experience is built for the phone, where most leaders first encounter the brand.
The thesis
A firm that builds companies should have a brand that looks like it could build one too.
Design rationale · Protis Global brand & web concept