Cedric Wilder Design

Cedric Wilder

Resume

Let’s chat

Cedric Wilder

Resume

Cedric Wilder

Design

⌄

Photo

⌄

Resume

Let’s chat

CASE STUDY / BRAND IDENTITY

Recharge

As the infrastructure for global subscription brands, Recharge requires a visual language of absolute clarity. This identity utilizes fundamental building blocks like grids and rectangles to bring order to the chaos of eCommerce, signaling stability and seamless merchant integration.

ROLE

Art Direction

Brand Identity

Logo Design

One mark, built to hold the whole system.

This is where I started. I built the Recharge mark from a handful of geometric shapes, the same blocks the brand still uses to talk about itself. A streamlined 'r' icon, paired with a modular system, gave the identity a technical clarity that could scale from a favicon all the way to a stage backdrop. Everything since has built on it.

THE CHALLENGE

Recharge had won. That was the problem.

Recharge had won.
That was the problem.

Recharge had won. That was
the problem.

Five years in, Recharge’s brand needed a refresh. The company had settled into market leader territory, a good problem to have. But leadership brings an image problem of its own: next to startups breaking things, the steadiest brand in the room can start to look slow instead of stable. The goal was bold and clean enough to feel in on the fun, without looking careless with the brand.

Exploring how far the brand could stretch

Before locking anything in, the team mocked up a handful of directions side by side: pushing the palette, seeing how loose we could get before Recharge stopped feeling like Recharge. We compared notes, kept what worked from each one, cut what didn't, and reined in whichever direction had wandered too far into the fun. Here are a few of the directions I kicked around.

Serious business. Playful brand.

By 2025, I'd grown a lot as a designer, and brought that back into the brand. The system holds steady at its core: a disciplined grid and subtle texture doing the quiet work of feeling secure. Then we broke it, just enough to let personality through. I led a lot of that thinking, working closely with the creative team to get it there.

By 2025, I’d grown a lot as a designer, and I got to bring that growth back into the brand that shaped my early career. The system starts stable: a disciplined grid and a subtle texture that do the quiet work of feeling secure. Then we broke it. Once that foundation held, we let the grid bend, added movement, and let some real personality through, bold enough to signal Recharge thinks differently, without ever looking careless with your business. I’d been pushing for a vibrant green in the palette for years (I’ll take the small victory), and it turned out to be the detail that ties the system together: a shot of energy against a brand that had already earned its stability. Plenty of the thinking here came from ideas I brought to the table, working alongside the rest of the brand team to get it right.

One system, every channel.

The same system had to flex across paid social and email: broad brand awareness spots, a push into EMEA, a steady stream of retention and win-back creative. Here’s a sampling of the ad work Recharge’s growth and lifecycle marketing teams built on top of that foundation.

Recharge paid advertising creative example

Built to hold up anywhere.

From conference stages to email headers, Instagram posts to merchant landing pages, the same system had to hold its own everywhere it showed up.

Taking the brand
on stage.

I played a lead design role across the entire ChargeX project, Recharge's annual flagship summit, working with the creative team from initial visual direction through mainstage graphics and environmental signage. The goal was to take the brand's momentum on screen and make it land just as sharp in the room.