Rebrand And Campaign For Ai Notepad Granola
Why make an AI brand look deliberately imperfect?
Ragged Edge partnered with Granola, an AI notepad, to create a full rebrand and global campaign that celebrated the messiness of human progress. Rejecting the sterile aesthetic common in AI, the new identity embraced warmth, wit, and imperfection, helping Granola become one of the fastest-growing software brands in the world.
Set in Granola Script, Quadrant, Melange
Insights- Granola’s rebrand tackles the core problem directly: instead of the sterile AI look, Ragged Edge built a brand around “the messiness of human progress,” with warmth, wit, and deliberate imperfection.
- The core identity move was highly specific: a hand-drawn, freeform G based on co-founder Sam Stephenson’s handwriting, turned into an intentionally non-linear growth path, plus a bespoke script, Granola Script, developed by NaN with multiple character variants.
- Ragged Edge split the typography by use case, pairing Quadrant for brand communications and display with Melange for the product interface, while retaining and systematising Granola’s existing green rather than replacing it.
- The campaign and system extended beyond the logo: “Findings” used physical cut-and-paste layered compositions mixing texture, colour, and photography, and an interactive tool generated effectively infinite brand executions.
- The rebrand also changed how the product was framed across markets: San Francisco got "Being present is a power move," while New York and London got the playful "Granola is not for breakfast" to explain the product to new audiences; the rollout drove No. 1 trending on X and the biggest download day in company history, per Ragged Edge and Creative Boom, and Granola went on to raise $125m at a $1.5bn valuation within three months.
