Designing a Better Brand Identity
Designing for Growth at Better Rhodes
When I first began working with the founders of Better Rhodes, they had already built something impressive. The company was a trusted name in the non-alcoholic beverage space, operating both as a marketplace and as an educational resource for people rethinking their relationship with drinking.
As the business grew, so did its footprint. AF Radio launched. The Better Without app followed. New opportunities were emerging, and with that growth came an important question.
How do you unify multiple products and platforms under one recognizable brand? How do you create consistency without flattening personality? And how do you make sure the customer remains at the center of everything?
That became the foundation for the work.
From Mission to Message
Better Rhodes has always been about connection. The founders set out to make discovering non-alcoholic beverages easier, more approachable, and more enjoyable. This was never a brand built on restriction. It was built on inclusion.
My role was to translate that mission into a visual system that could scale.
Through a series of strategy sessions, we worked to clarify what truly differentiated Better Rhodes in a fast-growing category. The answer was straightforward. The brand is built around its customers. Every product, podcast, and platform exists to help people make better choices and feel good about them.
The visual identity needed to reflect that same clarity and warmth.
Creating Consistency Across a Growing Ecosystem
At the time, each Better Rhodes property had its own visual language. That independence helped individual platforms grow quickly, but it also created fragmentation. From a customer perspective, it was not always obvious that the marketplace, AF Radio, and Better Without were connected or part of the same trusted brand.
We started with discovery. We mapped how customers interacted with the brand across touchpoints, including the website, social channels, email, and digital products. That process made the opportunity clear. Better Rhodes needed a shared system that could unify everything while remaining flexible.
The result was a comprehensive brand framework. We established consistent typography, a refined color palette, and a modular design grid that could adapt across platforms. Every decision was intentional. The goal was to create a brand that felt cohesive, confident, and familiar no matter where customers encountered it.
The Smile in the Drop
The most visible outcome of this work is the updated Better Rhodes logo. At its center is an orange drop with a subtle smile. It’s a simple mark, but one that communicates optimism, warmth, and trust. It also connects naturally to the beverage category without being overly literal.
As CEO Daniel Stiller put it, “The logo just makes me smile.” That reaction became a guiding principle for the entire system. The brand should feel good to engage with, just like the choices it encourages.
Typography was refined for clarity and legibility across digital and physical applications. Colors were tuned for contrast and consistency. Whether the logo appears on an app icon, a podcast cover, or a product page, it maintains the same approachable confidence.
Design That Supports the Business
This was not just a logo update. It was a strategic effort to bring clarity to a growing brand ecosystem. The new identity helps Better Rhodes present a unified story, one that is easy to recognize and easy to trust.
Good branding does more than improve aesthetics. It reduces friction. It builds confidence. It helps customers understand who a company is and what it stands for without needing an explanation.
The Better Rhodes identity reflects a brand that leads with empathy, values its audience, and believes that better choices should feel accessible and positive. The smile in the drop is not decoration. It’s a signal.
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