Granola
Granola committed to human progress. With a viral rebrand and campaign that drove extraordinary growth.
In an era of tech slop, Granola is an AI notepad built with care and intention. By capturing the context of every meeting, it allows you to cut through the busywork and get the real work done.
We helped turn a product beloved by Silicon Valley’s C-suite into a brand for knowledge workers everywhere. By rejecting the overly sanitised AI aesthetic in favour of the messiness of human progress, Granola became one of the most talked-about rebrands of the year. And the world’s second-fastest-growing software brand.
Overview
The Partnership
A full rebrand and relaunch, including brand campaigns in San Francisco, New York City and London.
Define
Most AI productivity brands fetishise efficiency, process and speed. To get Granola noticed, our strategy doubled down on what makes it different. Instead of helping knowledge workers jump through the hoops of modern work, Granola helps them focus on what matters: creating the open space to empty out their ideas and do meaningful work.
The idea
Granola is the AI notepad that helps you stay present so you can keep doing.
Create
This is the AI brand that captures the messy middle of work. The toil before the breakthrough, the hard work before progress. In a category where most design is cold, clinical and devoid of emotion, Granola stands out for its humanity. Handcrafted, witty and warm. Balancing a lighthearted attitude with the passionate focus to meet ambitious doers where they are.
Logo
The hand-drawn logo shows that the path to growth is never a straight line. And it’s a ‘G’.
Typography
Distinct and intentional, the type stack sets the tone. A slab serif combines tradition with contemporary character. And a grotesque typeface acts as a digital workhorse in product.
Granola Script
To put the human hand at the heart of the identity, we worked with NaN to create a bespoke script based on the handwriting of Sam, Granola’s co-founder.
Verbal identity
Less SaaS, more EQ. The brand voice speaks to progress and presence when it counts, adding wit and levity where it’s needed.
Findings & Illustrations
A visual manifestation of our creative energy spilling out from the blank page. Our cut and paste illustration style (we call them ‘findings’) is carefully crafted and layered, telling the story of a working day well spent. To keep things fresh, an interactive tool, built in-house, helps the Granola team create infinite executions at will.
Digital
A digital experience that feels like a haven. We worked closely with the Granola product team to retain the brand’s tactility while creating a peaceful space to focus.
Commit
We built the Granola brand not just to capture attention on screen, but to stop traffic IRL. Across San Francisco, New York and London, we created three distinct and city-specific campaigns to introduce Granola to the world boldly, single-mindedly and with the unmistakable Granola joy.
Our first campaign in San Francisco was strikingly minimal and quietly confident, centred on the power of presence to speak directly to tech audiences aware of or already using Granola.
The following campaigns in New York and London spoke to a larger audience, bringing levity and fun to explain exactly what Granola is (the AI notepad, not the breakfast).
The different reality
The results were startling. On launch day, Granola became the No. 1 trending topic on X, delivering the biggest day of downloads in its history. A month later, Ramp data showed it had become the world’s second-fastest-growing software brand after Anthropic. And three months later, it raised $125m at a $1.5bn valuation, with investors citing the brand as a key differentiator.
Ragged Edge pushed us to build the brand we’ve always wanted. Different to everyone else, and uniquely us. In a world of AI sameness, we wanted to stand out and stand up for what we believe – that human imperfection trumps rigid process every time. They delivered!
The impact’s been big. It’s helped us express ourselves everywhere, from social ads to billboards, in the app and internally too. It’s driven fantastic commercial growth for us — we’re really impressed with the results.
Thank you to a noteworthy team...
Special thanks to the Granola team — Sam, Chris, Jack, Rob, Tikhon, Ruari, Luke, Rob, James, Michael, Vicky, Tanya, and Rocco — as well as Ellis Hamburger and Charlie McKay, for their invaluable contributions.