VOICE _ DROPBOX
DROPBOX _ THE VOICE HANDBOOK
After updating our brand voice in 2020, we wanted to make our voice guidelines easily accessible to the Dropboxers who would use them the most. Our voice guide was already available in virtual form, in presentations and PDFs and Dropbox Paper docs. But with all the COVID-related social distancing and days full of zoom meetings, we wanted to create something more tangible.
So in 2021, we created a printed piece, a journal of sorts—80% of the book was blank pages for note-taking or brainstorming or writerly pen scratching. Our voice guidelines, writing tips, and brand values took up the other 20% of the book. The book cover doubled as a poster, and we included book marks with questions meant to help writers align their copy with the brand voice: “What’s my reader trying to do right now?” and “Did I communicate the big idea clearly?” Now all the writers (and writer-adjacent marketers and managers) could keep our brand voice top of mind and close at hand, right there on their desk.
I created all the words for the book. The design, and the photos of the handbook shown here, is the work of Kelly Galeano Arce.
DROPBOX _ SIMPLE. HELPFUL. HUMAN.
After using our “Expressive, Joyful, Human” voice for about two years, we realized that it wasn’t really working. Company strategy had shifted, and we needed a brand voice that addressed our new brand architecture. We also needed a voice that worked for the wider organization, since current messaging and voice were fractured across web, advertising, and product channels. We were telling disjointed stories, in disjointed ways, using different voices. So in 2020 we set out to evolve our brand voice and bring clarity, consistency, and coherence to the written world of Dropbox.
We wanted our new voice attributes—and accompanying voice guidelines—to be a centralized tool that anyone at Dropbox could use to write clearly, in our brand voice, to an audience of users and potential users. I was the lead on this project, but I wasn’t alone. I gathered a cross-functional team of writers from Brand Studio, UX, Marketing, CX, and Comms. In a series of workshops, we broke down what was and wasn’t working about the current voice, and we brainstormed new voice attributes and use cases.
What we came up with wasn’t necessarily groundbreaking—”simple, helpful, human” are fairly common brand attributes throughout tech spaces. But what worked better about these words were that they were true of the Dropbox brand, and they upheld core Dropbox values. They were genuine, and so they were supportable. It didn’t need to be the most rad, bleeding-edge idea ever. It needed to be effective. It needed to be a voice we could actually use, and use consistently.
DROPBOX _ PEOPLE BEHIND THE MACHINE
When I joined the Brand Studio at Dropbox in early 2018, they had just completed a major re-brand, repositioning the tech company from a staid and serviceable blue-and-white box to a surprisingly vibrant, expressive, provocative platform. The goal was to change market perception of the brand and product—no longer “files in sync,” now the company was all about “teams in sync.” They realized their product is largely used by creative problem solvers, who bring Dropbox into their own companies to help their teams collaborate and share work more efficiently. In an effort to target a more creative audience, Dropbox overhauled their brand—look, feel, and voice.
My very first project was to refine the new direction of the brand voice and make it easily useable and understandable for internal teams and external creative agencies. I also presented the new voice to Dropbox writers and marketers in the San Francisco HQ and in international offices, as well. Here is a selection of slides from my presentation:
