General Catalyst (GC) is a future-focused venture capital firm that describes itself as “agents of change.” With a new web experience in mind, the firm was looking to highlight the incredible work that they do around the world, give their brand a major facelift, and gain the ability to control their site themselves so that they could make regular updates. Through some branding work and a transition to the user- (and client-) friendly Webflow platform, we were able to bring their vision to life.

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Starting with brand design

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First, we worked to give GC’s brand an updated, dynamic look. When they came to us, the investment firm’s brand looked less like it belonged in the venture capital world and more like it might have been designed to market an upcoming design conference. The most important real estate on the site — the homepage hero — was dedicated to a large, cartoon-style illustration of a cityscape. It was cute but didn’t do much to convey what General Catalyst had to offer to founders, entrepreneurs, and budding businesses. The typography and color palette was similarly disjointed from their brand ethos, so our first priority was to create a new, sophisticated brand that felt distinguished, modern, and versatile across the web, social media, tote bags, and beyond.

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General Catalyst’s brand revolves around its “Agents of Change” messaging, so we wanted to align the brand to that bold position. For their new look, we chose a strong typeface for their new wordmark and integrated a gradient that we would also later bring through to the rest of the site. We also punched up their color palette, making it more vibrant and cohesive with their agents of change position.

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Alongside the brand work, we dove into rethinking General Catalyst’s site structure, making UX updates for a user-friendly experience that displayed the full, impressive scope of their work building the future of business, healthcare, and more.

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Following the lines

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To highlight the firm’s bold, change-packed messaging, General Catalyst also wanted a super dynamic, impressive homepage experience. A full-screen hero with an attention-grabbing video background of stars turning through the night sky offered an optimistic, open-to-inspiration vibe that gently reinforces the General Catalyst “Agents of Change” vision. And the video does double duty in that it immediately grabs the user’s attention when they land on the page.

And the dynamic experience doesn’t end with the homepage hero — line animation emanating from a headline reading “Change starts here” follows the user down the page as they scroll, bringing motion and interest to the experience and encouraging them to keep scrolling, while once again bringing a dynamic feel to the page that pays off the General Catalyst brand. This line animation is echoed throughout the site, giving a cohesive feel to the entire web experience.

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Bringing it all together in Webflow development

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Once design work was finished, we brought the entire experience into Webflow, a platform perfectly suited to General Catlayst’s needs. From the beginning, this VC company’s chief concern was that they gained ownership and more control over their web content. They also needed a site that could serve as a proof point for their marketing team, one that could reflect their most current work, feature up-and-coming founders, and let them cycle out old materials without too much trouble. Webflow makes it easy to make changes on the fly and for General Catalyst to keep up with being on the edge of innovation in their field.

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In contrast to their previous site experience (flat and complicated to update), the migration to Webflow gave GC a more dynamic design system and CMS, empowering them to make changes whenever they want to. We created a new structure that allows them to update their site as their work and story develop over time – an idea that calls back to their change-forward brand as well.

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