With a complete rebrand, product overhaul and platform launch in 180 countries, we reframed Upwork as a catalyst for better work and better lives.

Twenty years in, Upwork—which posts 8,000 jobs a day, serving five million employers and 18 million freelancers—was seen as a dated software company for gap-filling freelance gigs. Overhauling its image required a top-to-bottom approach. The task was to relaunch the world’s largest freelancing platform as a vital new marketplace.Through a new identity and “Up We Go” creative platform, we brought Upwork’s radical vision of freelance talent at the heart of every business to life.

Working with a budget of $600K, we touched all visual aspects of the brand—from type to motion, statics to website—creating a library of elements to employ across the entire Upwork brand.

Twenty years in, Upwork—a freelance talent platform that posts 8,000 jobs a day, serving five million employers and 18 million freelancers—was looking like a dated software company for gap-filling freelance gigs. But after a global pandemic fundamentally shifted the way we work, Upwork’s championing of remote freelance talent was never more relevant.

Upwork is leading a new era of work with a global, freelance workforce that helps businesses scale their ambition. What better time to introduce a new brand to the world—one that embodies what the brand offers: connecting talented companies with talented people from all worlds of thought, lifting the old constraints of time and place and enabling a collective leap forward. Working together, there’s only one way to go—up.

Our brand refresh targeted Upwork’s two primary audiences: large companies searching for talent and the talent itself.

With an army of freelance animators, photographers, designers, writers, directors and illustrators from Ukraine, US, China, Italy, Hong Kong, Brazil, Sweden, South Africa and other countries, we created a sweeping take on a new way of working, and showcased Upwork’s unique ability to utilize the talent of a worldwide freelance workforce.

We rebranded Upwork as the future of work. Our new product and brand included a redesigned product and app experience, refreshed logo, new fonts and color scheme and a library of 200 icons, 120 images, 40 illustrations and hours of film content and motion graphics. The new Upwork became a rallying cry for an optimistic and dynamic future of work—one powered by the world's best freelance talent.

"Our strongest sales quarter ever and 27% year-over-year growth in active clients" Hayden Brown, Upwork CEO, 7/29/21

Time Magazine “100 Most Influential Companies of 2022”

+67% in brand’s share of voice

+23% in brand awareness from pre-pandemic levels

+23% lift in freelancer registrations on Upwork

+22% in people searching for Upwork