Rafael Balbi
Work / Meteor & Galaxy; case 2 of 5

Meteor and Galaxy: two brands, each with its own place, both easy to use

I worked with the CEO to redesign both identities, give Galaxy its own place in a wider market, and ship toolkits that let developers and marketers create on their own.

Role
Brand strategy and visual design, freelance
Worked with
CEO and stakeholders
When
2024 to 2025
Delivered
Two identities, a new brand relationship, two brandbooks, Canva and Notion toolkits, three workshops

Context

Meteor is a full-stack JavaScript platform with a loyal, long-standing developer community. After a quiet period, the company wanted a comeback. Galaxy, its hosting service, had borrowed Meteor's look, and the two brands blurred into each other.

The goal was to bring Meteor back without losing what its fans recognise, give Galaxy room to grow, and make both brands easy to use for a lean team with no in-house designer.

What I did

  1. Meteor first. I audited years of brand use and talked with the community to understand what the comeback had to say.
  2. Staged validation. I wrote a creative brief and ran each step past the CEO and stakeholders, so decisions were agreed before they were drawn.
  3. Galaxy as a research tool. Redesigning Galaxy showed that leadership saw it reaching a wider market than Meteor. We defined a new relationship: two related brands, each with its own visual identity rather than one visual family.
  4. Rules people can follow. Brandbooks written for developers and marketers, a Canva Brand Kit and an open Notion repository of assets and rules.
  5. Training. Three long-form workshops on design principles and on using the new identities day to day.

Figures

14 figures from the project.

Meteor, before
Fig. 1; Meteor, before
Meteor, after
Fig. 2; Meteor, after
Galaxy, before
Fig. 3; Galaxy, before
Galaxy, after
Fig. 4; Galaxy, after
Brand foundations: the ideas behind the new Meteor
Fig. 5; Brand foundations: the ideas behind the new Meteor
Foundations: shapes and what they stand for
Fig. 6; Foundations: shapes and what they stand for
Explorations reviewed with the CEO
Fig. 7; Explorations reviewed with the CEO
Galaxy: building the new wordmark
Fig. 8; Galaxy: building the new wordmark
Galaxy brandbook, written for non-designers
Fig. 9; Galaxy brandbook, written for non-designers
Meteor brandbook: avoiding the mistakes found in the audit
Fig. 10; Meteor brandbook: avoiding the mistakes found in the audit
Open Notion and Canva repositories
Fig. 11; Open Notion and Canva repositories
The new identity on the Meteor website
Fig. 12; The new identity on the Meteor website
Blog and case studies with the new identity
Fig. 13; Blog and case studies with the new identity
Community content after the relaunch
Fig. 14; Community content after the relaunch

Delivered

2identities redesigned
1new architecture for the brand system
3long-form workshops for the team

Meteor kept the equity its community knows and gained a refreshed mark. Galaxy, now aimed at a wider market, got its own symbol and personality instead of borrowing Meteor's.

The relaunch reached tech media and drew new developers into the community, with plenty of user-made content. In 2026 the company started a programme that rewards the best community contributions.

Let's talk.

I'm a Barcelona resident, open to Creative Operations, Brand Systems and Creative Lead roles. I work in English and Portuguese, and I'm learning Spanish.

rafael.balbi@gmail.com
LinkedIn CV (PDF)