Enterprise Data Management

Website — A Design Project

Background

Rubrik is the market leader in Cloud Data Management, the world's first platform to orchestrate data for hybrid cloud enterprises anytime, anywhere. It’s now considered the “Fastest Growing Enterprise Company in the Billion Dollar League”, having a valuation of over $3.3B.

In May 2016, Rubrik was looking for a partner to take its website into a whole new level, and that’s when Pixelmatters comes in.

Design Challenge

From the get-go, it was clear Rubrik needed a new website, fully rethought from design to engineering. Being a company with a platform that aggregates different products accentuated the need to have a website that reflected them in the best way possible.

Even though the relation between Pixelmatters and Rubrik started with a Technical Audit to Rubrik.com, the challenge from a Design standpoint gained strength almost immediately — from the need to interpret technical briefs and transform them into simple and direct visuals, be able to design for scalability given Rubrik’s growth and achieve a B2B look and feel with a modern twist.

Creative Kickoff

While working on the new approach for Rubrik’s website, one of the biggest ongoing challenges during this phase was related to the interpretation of technical briefs. Pixelmatters became Rubrik’s secret weapon, by transforming those briefs into intuitive, clean and beautiful visuals, while still passing the message across.

Iteration evolution of Rubrik's Homepage throughout a 3-month period.
Iteration evolution of Rubrik's Homepage throughout a 3-month period.

Design Revamp

The iteration process was challenging, while the design evolved significantly during it. Pixelmatters made multiple variations of the Homepage until reaching a solid base whereas not only Rubrik’s communication was aligned, but also its branding and vision. This was always considering a more up-to-date style aimed to be more vibrant, but with a serious look and positioning.

B2B Approach

One of the main factors to consider while creating and defining a Look and Feel is the company’s target audience. Rubrik was clearly marketing and communicating towards mid to big-sized corporations. That was the goal not only then, but also for the future. Business decisions are mostly based on rational factors, so the website had to be clear, feel technical and secure of itself.

A Fast-Paced Growth

After the first big release was done, Pixelmatters had expanded the Design towards several other pages, in an agile approach, adapting to Rubrik’s Marketing Team needs, especially after raising its Series C round which implied the need for the website to be scalable, accommodating the brand and product growth.

The growth of the company undoubtedly reflected on the growth of the website, so Rubrik’s Marketing team and Pixelmatters had to keep up with that same pace. We dealt with frequent product launches with very tight deadlines, making sure the website reflected the Rubrik’s product release milestones.

Growth Brought Evolution

With Rubrik rapid expansion from 2017 onwards, it was time to progressively step up the look and feel in certain pages and modules so it could evolve with it and perfectly match with what the company is today. This look and feel are now full of strong gradients, new perspectives, isometry, animations, and a futuristic-esque style.

This had to be done carefully, as Rubrik shouldn’t lose its essence nor change its market positioning, but rather be more dynamic and showcase growth.

Illustration style evolution from a 2D perspective onto a 2.5 (Isometric) perspective.
Illustration style evolution from a 2D perspective onto a 2.5 (Isometric) perspective.

Disruptive While Consistent

Along with an evolved look and feel for the website, there was the need to create specific Marketing Campaign pages in which Pixelmatters took a disruptive approach that varied accordingly to the theme.

One of the challenges faced early on was how to keep all these different pages feel connected with Rubrik’s main brand without users feeling they were on an entirely different website. This was accomplished by a consistent color, shape and branding usage throughout the design.

Disruptive pages present throughout the website, while maintaining the main brand presence.
Disruptive pages present throughout the website, while maintaining the main brand presence.

A Unified and Polished Look

Having a website with hundreds of pages ultimately required a unified and solid UI that scales easily and adapts to Rubrik’s constant growth. This was reflected in the use of color, shapes, fonts, styles, iconography, and illustration. Componentization was and is imperative to allow the website to grow.

Several components used throughout the website to maintain consistency and visual integrity
Several components used throughout the website to maintain consistency and visual integrity

The Result

Currently, Rubrik’s website has a solidified design that serves as a pillar for scalability and dynamism, fully representing Rubrik as a very well established company in the Cloud Data Management space. It’s rewarding to be part of this journey.

Julia Lee

Pixelmatters is all about agility — They have an agile approach to both Design and Development, which is the perfect match for Rubrik's mindset and rapid growth.

Julia Lee

Former VP / Product Marketing at Rubrik


Summing it up

We've successfully designed Rubrik’s entire Corporate Website, a company valued at over $3 billion dollars, helping position the brand in the market as an established and solid cloud data management company.

Check live website