erik mausser creative leader

Teradata visual identity

Reintroducing Teradata as The Trusted AI Company through a modern, unified brand system.
Teradata brand guidelines pages showing visual identity system including logo, color palette, and graphic styles
Challenge
Teradata had spent decades earning its reputation in data warehousing — but by the time AI became the defining narrative in enterprise tech, its brand was telling the wrong story. The visual identity felt dated and overly technical, reinforcing perceptions of a legacy infrastructure vendor at exactly the moment the company needed to be seen as a strategic AI partner. The challenge wasn’t just aesthetic. It was repositioning a 45-year-old company for its next chapter — while building a system flexible enough to scale across digital, product, and experiential touchpoints for a global organization of 7,000+.
Solution

As Global Creative Director, I led the full transformation of Teradata’s visual identity — starting with an agency partnership for brand strategy, then transitioning execution in-house to build the scalable system the business actually needed. Navigating that handoff, along with significant stakeholder pressure around core brand decisions like the logo evolution, required as much leadership as it did design thinking.

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The goal was a system that felt intelligent, human, and built for the digital world:

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  • Logo and Visual System: Evolved the logo and built a flexible, modular design system — digital-first palette, modern typography, and a custom illustration language purpose-built for AI and data storytelling.
  • Motion and AI-Inspired Language: Introduced a dynamic motion system guided by principles of clarity, responsiveness, and adaptability — giving every digital and video touchpoint a cohesive, intelligent feel.
  • Photography and Imagery: Commissioned narrative-driven photography centered on the real people behind the technology, humanizing a complex enterprise platform in a way stock imagery never could.
  • Digital and Campaign Expression: Scaled the identity across web, social, and global campaigns, creating a unified presence across brand, demand, and product marketing.
  • Global Brand Enablement: Built and rolled out training, tools, and a centralized brand hub — giving 7,000+ global associates and agency partners what they needed to execute consistently from day one.
Impact

The rebrand landed. Teradata was reestablished as “The Trusted AI Company” — not just as a tagline, but as a measurable shift in how the market perceived and engaged with the brand.

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  • Share of Voice for Trusted AI grew from 31% → 44%, strengthening category leadership.
  • Brand perception shifted from “legacy vendor” to “innovative and trusted” among executive audiences.
  • Media pull-through rate reached 74%, reflecting the clarity and resonance of the new positioning.
  • Seismic asset engagement rose from 72% → 86%, showing genuine global adoption across sales and marketing teams.
Teradata brand element styles showing photography and graphic composition guidelines, including shape usage, subject placement, and directional flow principles from the brand guidelinesCustom Teradata brand illustration featuring a man at a laptop with the signature orange dot and Thrive shapes, demonstrating the human-centered, motion-inspired illustration system
Speaker presenting on the main stage at Teradata's Possible conference, with branded stage design and lighting
Collection of Teradata trade show booth designs in multiple sizes, demonstrating the modular, scalable application of the brand system across experiential environmentsCover and interior pages from a Teradata ebook showcasing the brand's updated typography, layout, and photo styleTeradata brand poster featuring portrait photography surrounded by text and Thrive shape graphics, demonstrating the brand's visual identity systemCollection of Teradata digital display advertisements in multiple sizes demonstrating consistent brand system across formats
Next Project
Teradata digital