you & tonik - your design partner
We’re a well-knit design studio fiddling with products, brands and (no-)code. We’ve helped countless early-stage startups define, build and scale their MVPs, but also had our share of fun with more mature companies, supporting their design and development teams.
Our expertise is in B2B SaaS, but we’re just as comfortable with new challenges, even if they require deep domain knowledge. We enjoy working closely with the client's team (or the founders themselves) to build long-lasting relationships
If you’re a YC startup, portfolio company of our VC network, making a positive impact on the world or a qualified non-profit — we’ll cut you an amazingly good deal.
Say hello via hello@tonik.com. Cue the ‘meg ryan in you’ve got mail email scene’ gif.
Recommended Providers
Focus
Portfolio
Segment, ChiliPiper, Wildfires, Liefergrün, lemon.markets, Kafene, Chronosphere
Segment.io
What good is data, if mismanaged? To bring value to the table, it has to be well collected, cleaned and controlled.
Thankfully, there's Segment with the 25,000+ businesses using it to solve these problems.
In 2019, the Y Combinator born unicorn asked us to refresh their design language, which included marketing pages, products and design systems.
ChiliPiper
Filling out a contact form to get a product demo is such a drag, right? Not for Chili Piper, who turned it into a profitable business!
Their secret sauce was so good that they asked us to help them scale it into a suite of productivity apps.
During our 2-year collaboration, we designed half a dozen of MVPs connected by a cohesive design system.
Wildfires
Remember how in 2020 the sky above SF looked straight up from Blade Runner 2049?
That was because of wildfires in California. And they’re only getting more severe.
We teamed up with Wildfires (the non-profit group, not the actual wildfire!) to bring this crisis under control.
We’re responsible for the product design.
Liefergrün
Liefergrün is a shipping solution that doesn’t cost the Earth.
They believe in a sustainable delivery experience as a key differentiator for online retailers, and promise to drop customers’ packages as fast as the same day as ordered.
We designed a fresh brand identify, website and the actual product too.
Chronosphere
What do you get when you combine Uber engineers, the knowledge of taming uncontrollable data growth and clients with cloud-native workloads?
An impeccable solution for large-scale companies to manage their observability data and costs.
We replaced Chronosphere’s basic website and non-existed branding with a professional and logical design language.
KultureAthletics
Is that a sensor in your pants?! — Yup!
Kulture Athletics is the world’s first smart activewear that tracks your activity to give more connected fitness experience.
In just about a month, we designed a beautiful iOS app prototype to wow potential customers and investors.
lemon.markets
Lemon Markets is a developer-friendly trading infrastructure that gives you the power to build anything.
Enriched with market data from the stock market. Shipped with all-batteries-included order execution. All in one API.
We’ve met the team at the very beginning of their journey and designed a stand-out branding, website and product.
Protonn
If you want to build strong relationships with your clients, forget email or phone calls — personalized video is the way.
Protonn lets you record, edit and share it, and has everything else a small business needs.
We designed a beautiful landing page and an intuitive web/iOS app.
Kafene
Kafene makes ownership flexible to every adult American in under 5 minutes. With their help, leasing is available to individuals.
Nobody has to worry about missing a payment or their credit score — which gets boosted if they buy out the loan earlier.
We designed Kafene’s customer and merchant-facing products.
Upshift
Upshift makes renting a car cheaper than a monthly garage space. They cover insurance, maintenance and roadside assistance.
All you gotta do is choose between a Toyota Prius or an SUV, and it’s delivered to you with a tank full of gas.
We designed a conversion-oriented landing page and a web/mobile app that assists users from onboarding to everyday use.
NoGood
NoGood is New York’s most recognized growth marketing agency.
A team of creatives, designers, engineers and data scientists help unlock rapid growth for the world’s most iconic brands and fast-developing VC-backed startups.
We revamped their website and revolutionized their branding.
Swan
Swan is the easiest way to embed banking features into your product.
Via Swan's simple APIs, European companies can integrate banking services (accounts, cards and IBANs) quickly into their product.
We refreshed Swan’s website that included custom animated illustrations.
Reviews
the project
Design for FinTech Company
"The quality, the spirit, and the friendliness of the people working at tonik impressed us."
the reviewer
the review
The client submitted this review online.
Please describe your company and your position there.
I am head of Consulting and Business Modelling at JAROWA. Among my responsibilities was to define the features and design of our platform.
For what projects/services did your company hire tonik?
Tonik have been helping JAROWA in defining aspects of Corporate Identity & Design (Logo, Color Scheme,...) and the UX/UI design of the platform.
What were your goals for this project?
JAROWA platform is a B2B2C platform which helps corporates such as insurance companies and administration to have through JAROWA access to a community of qualified service providers, manage them according to their strategic goals, and manage the work orders given to the service providers.
How did you select this vendor?
We identified a list of companies through desktop research, we shorted the list based on an RFI and selected Tonik based on their delivery for a mini project.
Describe the project in detail.
The project was mainly about designing the UX of a web platform. Un a skype call we explained to them the business background. Then during the development phase we asked them to design a new psge of the platform. The design process is iteative. It means i get a first proposal, give my feedbacks and then it gets improved, and so on. For the more complex features, Tonik designed different options.
What was the team composition?
Project manager, and a designer
Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?
Our customers love the design of the platform. It is modern, neat, clear and intuitive to use
How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?
Very effective. The communication is always direct. Tonik kept the promised deadlines and they delivered always quality results. I value also the fact, that Tonik employees are proactive, come with new ideas to make the product better, and challenge me if necessary.
What did you find most impressive about this company?
The quality, the spirit, and the friendliness of the people working at tonik impressed us.
Are there any areas for improvement?
They could be faster. But deadline were always met, and the delivery was always wirh good quality.
the project
Graphic & UX Design for Lead Gen Startup
"People ask who our designers are because they really like what we have."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
My company is called Elucify. We build products to help people find leads to sell more effectively. I’m the CEO of the company.
What challenge were you trying to address with Tonik?
Our team has very strong engineering and sales capabilities, but we were lacking a good freelance designer. We weren’t quite ready to hire someone full time, and we wanted to find someone who communicated effectively and could create designs that were at our standards. I think we have a pretty high design bar for what we like. We had talked to quite a few designers, and we found Tonik to be very good.
Before that, our site had been designed by one of the founders. It was not slick in any way and didn’t look that great. We knew that in order to take the product to the next level, we needed a designer to help us.
What was the scope of their involvement?
The scope was the entire product, including the landing page, the actual product itself, mockups for new product lines we’re going to be releasing, and A/B tests that we’re doing with marketing. They just did everything you could possibly imagine.
One aspect of design is just making something look good, but I think the other aspect they do is to think about how to make it easier to use. They sometimes add or remove information to make a page more aesthetically pleasing. We would send them a mock, and they would put in their own design expertise. They made suggestions about adding logos and more images to make a page look better. They might give feedback that there’s too much text on a page. There’s some higher-level guidance when designing, in addition to just trying to make things look good.
I haven’t found research on user base or surveying customers to be a big issue. We try to be very communicative in terms of what our user base thinks about and cares about, and I think Tonik has been able to capture that pretty well.
I communicate with one point person, Patryk [Cobczak, Graphic Design Specialist]. I believe different designers in the firm work on the project, but we’re okay not knowing too much about that. We care that the designs look really good and we have someone we can communicate with very well. We’ve been very happy with whatever process they have underneath the hood. It’s been pretty effortless for us.
How did you come to work with Tonik?
We started a broader search, trying to find the right designer to work with, and I talked to a few people I knew. I looked at different services online, and we also put out feelers through different forums. We’re part of this one incubator which is fairly prestigious in Silicon Valley, and we looked there for referrals. Someone had referred Tonik because they had a good experience with them. That was the original introduction. We selected Tonik over other designers for a combination of reasons, including the speed at which they work and the quality of their designs. The price point is really friendly for a startup as well.
How much have you invested with Tonik?
We’ve spent between $8,000 and $12,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
The project began around May of 2016 and our relationship is ongoing. They’re actually delivering something to us tomorrow.
Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?
We’ve gotten feedback that our product is really simple and easy to use, and that’s huge for any software product. Being easy to use is incredibly difficult. People ask who our designers are because they really like what we have. It’s pretty common that we hear stuff like that.
How did Tonik perform from a project management standpoint?
They perform very well. The process usually starts with a scheduled Skype call, and then we check in every day or two, depending on the size of the project. Some things take three to five days to design, and others may take a day. The more frequently we give feedback, the higher fidelity is in terms of what we’re looking for. There is a time difference between us and Poland, so we tend to talk with them either early in the morning or late at night, and that works for us.
What did you find most impressive about Tonik?
I think it’s just the combination of speed, quality, and price. We’ve been very happy that we get all of these in our engagement with Tonik. We chose not to work with a lot of designers in the past because they didn’t hit our design bar, but that was very clearly not a problem with Tonik.
Are there any areas Tonik could improve?
Nothing really jumps out. We’re very happy with them.
the project
Slide Designs for Software Design Company
"The design work is excellent without providing too much in the way of specific design specs."
the reviewer
the review
The client submitted this review online.
Please describe your company and your position there.
I'm the CEO of a software company that provides products and services to retailers.
For what projects/services did your company hire tonik?
We hired Tonik to support development of our Series A fundraising deck.
What were your goals for this project?
Our goal was to significantly improve visual communication of key concepts to make our fundraise more successful.
How did you select tonik?
We were referred by a trusted investor of ours.
Describe the project in detail.
We asked the Tonik team to improve upon an existing base of slides with basic graphics that we had put together. It required finding better visual mediums to express the content. Each slide was changed over to the new format in support of this goal.
What was the team composition?
On our side I worked directly with the Tonik team.
Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?
The slides were clearly better than what we came in with, and it did ultimately better serve the communication we were having with investors.
How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?
We like to use email and G Suite comments to communicate and the Tonik team seemlessly became a part of our existing process.
What did you find most impressive about this company?
The design work is excellent without providing too much in the way of specific design specs. This suggests they're experienced and have an eye for detail as well as a talent for doing this kind of project.
Are there any areas for improvement?
Not really, I felt it was well done.
the project
Branding & Web Design for B2B Marketing Agency
“They were so easy to work with and they really did feel like they were part of our team.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
Sara Dornsife: Matter Made is a B2B marketing agency. We work with Seed and series A startups. I’m a partner doing branding, messaging, positioning, and content strategy.
Julie McKenney: I’m the head of marketing, operations and project management. I deal with schedules, budgets, timing, and creative design. I was the lead project manager when we worked with tonik.
What challenge were you trying to address with tonik?
SD: As a marketing and branding agency, we were neglecting our own brand. We decided we needed to put the time and energy into working on our own brand. They helped us rebrand ourselves.
What was the scope of their involvement?
SD: We were building our branding guideline and brand elements. Their largest deliverable was the redesign of our website. We fully updated our website. It is the same content and layout, but we updated our messaging and branding. We were focused on creating consistency and uniformity across our brand.
We created some pretty clear guidelines and a tight brief. Then, we worked very closely with them, sometimes on a daily basis, to review what they were working on and provide feedback. They definitely felt like a partner for us.
JM: The other item was taking all of those elements and creating a deck template for us, as well as assets that we could use over and over again. In addition to our website, they created a 70-page deck template, brand guidelines, and brand pad.
What is the team composition?
JM: We had one primary designer and project manager. They also brought in a few other designers when needed and we had communication with the owner as well.
How did you come to work with tonik?
JM: We worked with tonik on a few of our clients’ projects, and we loved working with them and the quality of their work. When it came time to do our own brand, we went back to them.
SD: We knew someone who used them, so when we found them online, we recognized their name. That made us look more closely at them.
What is the status of this engagement?
JM: This project lasted from March–June 2020.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
SD: We’ve seen about a 250% increase in traffic to our site as we’ve started to promote our new site.
How did tonik perform from a project management standpoint?
JM: It was excellent. They’re great to work with and they respond quickly. They kept us on-scope but were flexible enough that we were able to achieve the goals we wanted to. They were on Slack with us.
SD: I felt like they were partners with us. They internalized this project and came to us with some delightful and unexpected ideas.
JM: Communication with them was very easy and streamlined. They were very flexible. Whenever we gave them feedback, they just ran with it. They were so easy to work with and they really did feel like they were part of our team. They still check-in and submitted our website for a couple of different awards. They’re a champion of ours, and they’re really great partners. I’m excited to work with them on our clients’ projects again in the future.
What did you find most impressive about them?
JM: I love the animation they did for us.
SD: I was going to say the same thing.
JM: The animation is on our website, but they also gave us the files we can use for other things. They also provided direction on how to hand the project off to our developer. It was amazing to watch two agencies collaborating. The direction was very clear, and the developer was able to build it very quickly.
Everything was fantastic, we’re already working with them for a client’s project.
Are there any areas they could improve?
JM: I don’t have any criticism.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
SD: If you have a deck to work on, you should call tonik. Be clear with what you’re looking for. They’re very creative people, but with direction, they were on board with us.
the project
Homepage Design for Marketplace
"Their professionalism while delivering high-quality results is impressive."
the reviewer
the review
The client submitted this review online.
Please describe your company and your position there.
I am the CTO of a marketplace operating in Europe
For what projects/services did your company hire tonik?
Our website was already pretty outdated design-wise and we were looking for a Design company that can bring a bit of 2020 spirit on our look and feel.
What were your goals for this project?
Definitely, we wanted to step up our design and also get some professional experience when it comes to UI/UX side since we don't have anyone inhouse.
How did you select this vendor?
We looked across professional companies with a good score in Clutch and also some relevance in Behance/Dribbble which were sharing our timezone
Describe the project in detail.
Whole redesign of our homepage and overall our CI
What was the team composition?
We had a project manager, a second project manager based on the daily business and a designer assigned to all our projects
Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?
Within few weeks the cooperation started to be productive and all our stakehiolders were happy with the new vision Tonik has brought to us.
How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?
It has been highly efficient since we understood since the very first moment and it didn't require almost any iteration after their first drafts.
What did you find most impressive about this company?
The quality in their designs and how easy-going they are in all the changes we requested. Also, their professionalism while delivering high-quality results is impressive.
Are there any areas for improvement?
Nothing to add
the project
Marketing for Scheduling App
"They have talented designers."
the reviewer
the review
The client submitted this review online.
Please describe your company and your position there.
CXO & Co-Founder at Chili Piper
For what projects/services did your company hire tonik?
Marketing & Product
What were your goals for this project?
Ease of use, clarity of information
How did you select this vendor?
We tested a few agencies with a small project and Tonik delivered what we wanted
Describe the project in detail.
Marketing & product work for Chili Piper
What was the team composition?
UX, UI, Brand
Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?
They make sure our product feels and look great. Same for our website
How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?
Tonik is always responsible and makes sure we know when they will delivery
What did you find most impressive about this company?
They have talented designers, it was a pleasure to work with
Are there any areas for improvement?
Not really
the project
Website Redesign for Logistics Startup
"Yes, we were happy with the initial project."
the reviewer
the review
The client submitted this review online.
Please describe your company and your position there.
We used Tonik for all design and web development related tasks for our venture backed ($50M+ in funding) logistics startup. As Marketing Lead I worked closely with their team.
For what projects/services did your company hire tonik?
We started with a website redesign project, which they delivered on time and in budget. We then started to use them for most of our design and web development project over the next years.
What were your goals for this project?
Create a new look&feel for website that still represents our Brand.
How did you select this vendor?
I had multiple calls with about 5 agencies. We used a selection matrix to rank all agencies. Tonik scored best.
Describe the project in detail.
We did many projects with them, the biggest one was the complete redesign of our website.
What was the team composition?
I handled most of the communication with them.
Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?
Yes, we were happy with the initial project (website redesign) and hired them for many more.
How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?
We communicated in English via Slack. We had a very open and direct communication without big delays.
What did you find most impressive about this company?
They deliver and it looks good.
Are there any areas for improvement?
Nobody is perfect. But overall there were no big issues.
the project
UI/UX Design for Fitness Brand
"Their flexibility, response to feedback, and great communication throughout the process impressed us."
the reviewer
the review
The client submitted this review online.
Please describe your company and your position there.
I am CTO and co-founder for Kulture Athletics. We make smart activewear to track various biometrics.
For what projects/services did your company hire tonik?
UI/UX design of our demo mobile app.
What were your goals for this project?
A user interface design to display biometrics and activity tracking.
How did you select this vendor?
We searched online and found them through dribbble.
Describe the project in detail.
Once selected we had several meetings reviewing the overall look and feel and the work began. We were kept in the loop regularly throughout the process for quick feedback.
What was the team composition?
Two designers and project manager from Tonik working with our engineering team.
Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?
A positive experience resulting in a beautiful UI / UX.
How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?
Very effective workflow. They utilized slack and we had direct contact with the designers once the project kicked off.
What did you find most impressive about this company?
Their flexibility, response to feedback, and great communication throughout the process impressed us.
Are there any areas for improvement?
None, looking forward to working with them again!
The website has recieved positive feedback from customers on it's sleek and clean design. tonik utilizes their creativity and experience to produce modern results that fit the needs of the client. The team is hard-working, flexible, and east to work with.