We had an editor’s top pick app in the chrome web store. But the story only begins now.

The re-branding of Candy and the birth of lumio.

In late 2016, we decided to completely re-design the Candy app. Here’s how and why we did it.

Only interested in what’s new? Scroll down to ‘The lumio chrome extension. What’s new.’


We started Candy with the aim of creating a really handy way to utilize online content. We wanted to find a way to easily save content with the flexibility to utilize it any way you like.

Candy received good feedback on the market. It was selected as an editor’s top pick on the chrome web store, it was nominated for the ‘Chrome Extension of the Year’ award by Product Hunt, and it reached 50,000+ downloads so far.

Market feedback made us confident that we should carry on, but we wanted something even better. We decided to start the design process over from scratch and one of our first steps was to reconsider the brand too. This led to some life-changing decisions.


Re-branding

The Candy brand was made up of five key elements. The snippets of text that you could save with the app were called Candys. You could organize your Candys in collections that we called Storylines. We regularly had questions about why they’re called stories, and they were often misunderstood as some kind of live feeds. The app was also called Candy, and it was quite often confusing whether we were talking about the app or about Candys. The domain where you could find us was candybank.com, and accordingly, by many, we were referred to as Candybank, the bank that stores your Candys. Our visual communication revolved around stars and the universe, the incomprehensible that you can comprehend if you collect and organize stuff with the Candy app. A long shot if you start the story with Candys.

Though we loved each of them, we’d also long known that they hardly all fit together, and that in order to have a consistent brand, we’d need to change one or more of them one day. That day arrived four months ago.

The process

We started by once again reviewing everything that shaped how and why we were working on Candy as well as all that we knew about our users, their workflows and goals.

We quickly found a starting point that proved to be helpful: the app we’re designing we see as a mentor and friend who inspires you, supports you, and sometimes advises you to help you become a master of your interests.

During a series of workshops we came up with dozens of ideas that we systematically analyzed from all aspects of the Candy brand (information unit, group of units, app name, domain, visual communication).

The most appropriate app name ideas were further analyzed along six questions: (1) Is it memorable? (2) Does it mean something? (3) Is it unique? (4) Does it fit the product? (5) Is it easy to say? (6) Can we own it? (7) Will it allow us to grow?

Our unanimous choice for app name was: lumio.

Why lumio

lumio allows us to tell a story with it. It fits brand essence, as well as brand personality very well: lumio helps you highlight or spotlight stuff, lumio helps you become enlightened, become a master, and lumio can be impersonated, it may really become your mentor and friend. It’s unique (most competitors use descriptive names, lumio is made-up), it’s easy to pronounce and remember both for English speakers and all others we could talk to, and we could easily find a domain, lumioapp.com, that fit it well.

Highlights, images, cards and collections

The word lumio is full of associations. Therefore, we decided that we’d name all other product elements exactly what they are. The highlights you save with the app will be called your highlights, the images, videos and pages you save will be your images, videos and pages, the cards that carry your saved stuff will be called lumio cards, and card collections will be called lumio card collections. As simple as that.

A new visual brand identity

The colors we selected for lumio are a playful yellow, a peaceful green, an exciting red and a trustful blue. The colors combined promise that lumio will be positive, playful and bold.

When designing the lumio logo we started by visually describing its basic functions: highlighting, organizing (compiling, comparing, combining and distinguishing), and sharing information. Hopefully, you’ll recognize and love lumio whenever you meet :)


The lumio chrome extension. What’s new.

It’s the same key features with a new design. Plus some great new features.

Candy users, you have nothing to do, the Candy app automatically upgrades to lumio and all your data in the Candy app is automatically transferred to lumio.

We’ve listened to your feedback:
- The menu button in the bottom-right is gone. To access the lumio menu just click the toolbar icon.
- Gone are the overlays too. All your data is accessible in the sidebar.
- Now you can also save images. Hover your mouse over an image and click the lumio icon to save it.
- lumio can also process pdf documents opened in chrome.
- You can add your own notes as cards in a collection to record your thoughts or to divide groups of cards.
- Cards are now called cards, collections are called collections.

See two short videos on how to save and how to organize with lumio.

If you have any comments or questions, let us know in the comments below.


Next steps: web app, mobile app and more.

[update: a web app was launched on 22 April]

A Chrome extension is only the first step. A mobile app and a web app are in the works. You’ll be able to save all important stuff also when on the move, and access everything full-screen, in a web-app very soon.


Break up with bookmarks! Meet lumio.

Add lumio to Chrome here.

Follow lumio: Medium, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo.