Hootsuite is a social media management platform founded in 2008 in Vancouver, Canada. Its visual identity has centered on Owly, an owl mascot that has served as the company’s logo and brand symbol since the platform’s earliest days. The current identity, launched in July 2022, was developed in partnership with branding agency Prophet and features a redesigned Owly with a full-body character and a nature-inspired color palette.
Design and History
Owly predates the Hootsuite name. In 2008, the company was known as BrightKit and already had an owl logo and mascot. As the company prepared to rename itself, a crowdsourcing effort produced the name “Hootsuite,” combining “hoot” (for Owly) with “suite,” inspired by the French expression tout de suite, meaning “right now.” From 2008 to 2014, the wordmark displayed “Hootsuite” in two colors to separate the two parts of the name. Owly’s first design used a beige, orange and grey palette.[1]
In June 2014, Hootsuite changed its logo for the first time since launching. Owly was redesigned in black and white, stripped of the bright colors and varied “outfits” the mascot had previously worn. The company said the change reflected the maturity of the brand and its growing enterprise customer base. Vancouver-based design agency Vigilantes handled the rebrand.[2] The wordmark also changed from “HootSuite” to “Hootsuite” with a lower-case “s.”[3] Hootsuite’s VP of marketing at the time said the new look was meant to reflect “the maturity of the brand” as the company served a wider range of clients.[2]
In July 2022, Hootsuite launched a comprehensive rebrand with a new brand platform, “Your Guide to the Wild.” The company appointed Owly as its Chief Connection Officer, giving the mascot a larger role as a guide for brands navigating social media.[4] Prophet helped develop the entire design system, from logo and color scheme to font and Owly’s personality.[5] Owly’s head, previously optimized for the logo mark, was expanded to a full body with a range of poses, allowing the character to emote and react for the first time.[6]
Meaning and Symbolism
The 2022 rebrand introduced a nature-inspired color palette. Hootsuite’s chief marketing officer explained that the company deliberately avoided electric blue or electric yellow, choosing instead “colours you can actually find in nature.” The green represents the mountains around Vancouver, and the saffron represents the warmth of the company’s internal culture.[7] Prophet’s case study similarly notes that the saffron color represents warmth, while the natural green palette takes inspiration from the mountains of Hootsuite’s home city.[5]
Owly’s 2022 redesign gave the mascot a library of over 20 expressions, with interchangeable eyes on the physical costume, making the character more expressive than in previous iterations.[1] Hootsuite has described owls as representing “wisdom and strength.”[8]
Typography and Design
Prophet’s team paired Owly’s playful, flat illustration with a “funky wordmark” and a nature-inspired color palette, crafting the elements to feel “human, tactile, and warm.”[6] The 2022 identity was developed in-house at Hootsuite’s internal agency, The Hootique, in collaboration with Prophet, which helped develop the logo, brand colors and overarching manifesto.[9]
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