HEX designs bold geometric blocks to map Grafana’s product ecosystem

The Brand Identity: Grafana has over 20 products – observability, scanning, analytics, AI, performance testing – and each of those words means something very specific to a developer. When Vancouver-based experimental creative studio HEX took on the identity work, the core challenge was finding a way to visualise that breadth into a language that felt cohesive, fresh and technical. “We didn’t want to just make something that looked cool next to the product,” explains Ayush Soni, Founder & Creative Director at HEX.

“We wanted the visual system to describe what the products do.” HEX started with a geometric block as the atomic unit, then attached meaning to each piece. The block represents the platform. Modular pieces that connect to it represent individual products. From there, real concepts emerge through composition: configurations become blocks arranged together, scanning becomes a line moving through the blocks, observability becomes that line zooming into a block and examining it from the inside.

The AI product received a more organic treatment using the same atomic pieces but moving fluidly, almost like an interface that responds as you interact with it. Each visual treatment maps to a product concept. The visuals have logic as well as aesthetics. As Soni outlined, the grid running through the identity echoes how Grafana’s products really work. Dashboards, panels and graphs are all arranged in structures within the software, and that panel-based logic informed how HEX thought about the building blocks of the brand.

The geometric units snap together, tile and reconfigure – composable pieces that can be arranged and rearranged depending on what needs to be communicated. That underlying principle maps directly from product to brand: modularity as both functional requirement and visual language. The colour palette – cyan, magenta, green, yellow and orange against black – was always going to be central. Grafana’s existing brand already carried a playful, colourful energy that the team wanted to maintain. “You can signal technical proficiency while still being warm and inviting,” Soni shares.

“That matters especially for an open-source company like Grafana, where the brand needs to reflect a community building together.” With 20+ products coexisting under one brand, each product area takes on its own colour identity while clearly belonging to the ecosystem. Density became the main lever for how the system behaves across different formats and applications. A hackathon poster can go full volume with layered illustrations, saturated colour and bold language, while slide 45 of an internal deck might carry a single motif in the corner at reduced contrast.

“The principle is that you control the brand’s presence by adjusting how many layers you use, how much colour and how complex the compositions get,” Soni explains. “In quieter contexts, we have fewer elements, less contrast and more negative space. In louder moments, we stack more layers, bring in more colour and let the system expand.” The icon work grew from the same atomic logic, built from the same geometric vocabulary, so they feel native to the larger compositions. HEX made a deliberate choice to round the corners – introducing a softer, more approachable register while maintaining the same energy and modularity.

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The article discusses a significant rebranding effort for Grafana, a notable player in the tech industry, which showcases a fresh approach to visual identity that is relevant to brand strategy professionals.