Granola

The brief

Granola is an AI notepad for meetings. It keeps the context of every conversation, so the people who use it can stay present and focused on their work. The product had first won over executives in Silicon Valley, and its original identity, put together in a few days, looked like any other software company. Ragged Edge was asked to make it a brand for every knowledge worker, not only the executives who found it first, and to step away from the glossy, sterile aesthetic that most AI brands share, toward something calm, warm and human.

The system

The type pairs Quadrant Notepad, a member of the Quadrant family by Matter of Sorts, set for display, with Melange Grotesk by Kimera across the product. Beside them sits Granola Script, a bespoke script made with the foundry NaN from the handwriting of co-founder Sam Stephenson: built from hundreds of handwritten characters, with multiple variants of each letter, it changes as it is written, like real handwriting. The colour is a warm, earthy green that evolves Granola’s own palette, far from the vibrant RGB colours that most AI brands use.

The identity

The logo is a freeform, organic G, like a note jotted on a napkin and deliberately left imperfect. Illustration follows a style called “findings”, which layers texture, colour and photography, while a verbal identity and the digital design of the product complete the system. The launch campaign took the brand outdoors: in San Francisco under the line “Being present is a power move”, and in New York and London under “Granola is not for breakfast”, on billboards, trains and bus stops and in full station takeovers.