Notion is an application for organizing information. It was developed as an all-in-one app with a calendar, notepad, spreadsheets, and much more. The app is suitable for people from completely different fields of activity, which is why Notion’s popularity is only growing and today the app has millions of users all over the world.
The first version of Notion was released in 2013 and was created by Aiwan Zhao, a talented programmer from San Francisco. He combined the features of Google Docs, OneNote, Word, Confluence, GitHub Wiki, and Asana into Notion, making it a universal planning tool.
However, it was originally a text page editor that allowed text markup and supported user collaboration. The new product turned out to be of no use to anyone, and in 2015 Notion was on the edge of failure. The developers faced a difficult choice: to abandon the idea or to rework it based on new technologies. And they obviously chose the second option.
It was only in 2016, with the release of version 1.0, that Notion was seriously talked about. The startup made it to the top of Product Hunt and quickly got its first customers. Today, Notion is valued at more than 20 billion dollars. It is used by more than 30 million people worldwide.
Notion is a cross-platform notepad that allows you to organize and structure your notes by syncing them with other devices. The Service is also extremely convenient for teamwork. Created documents are synchronized in real-time.
Notion allows you to organize almost anything. When you create a new page, it can be customized for different tasks: from a shopping list to managing your own business. Thus, Notion started with a very simple product idea that solves users’ immediate problems and then guides them to discover advanced use cases.
The service has a paid and free version. The first one costs from $5 to $10 per month and is characterized by an extended set of functions and storage capacity. It works as an application on a smartphone or computer, as well as online in a web browser.
What is Notion?
Notion is the name of a service for creating notes and text documents, to-do lists, databases, spreadsheets, boards, knowledge bases, project management, and collaboration. In simple words, the service works as both a database and a task scheduler, which makes it simply indispensable.
In terms of visual identity, Notion is very stylish and cool. The icon of the application is executed in a black-and-white color palette, just like the interface of the program, but it doesn’t look boring at all, as the designers managed to create a very recognizable and elegant style using simple lines and flat shapes.
The Notion logo, introduced in 2016, features a simple geometric image drawn in thick black lines against a white background. It is a cube with black outlines and a solid left edge, with the heavy uppercase “N” written in a smooth serif typeface on the front edge. The interesting details here are the softened angles of the cube and the playful cuts of the serifs in the main character.
The bold handwritten “N” from the primary logo of the Notion platform is executed in a custom serif typeface with bold lines and smooth cuts of the lines’ ends. It is hard to find a similar type among the commercial ones, but probably the Notion font is based on Mastro or TT Tricks.
As for the color palette of the Notion visual identity, it is black-and-white, a traditional combination, which never gets old or untrendy. The minimalistic scheme leaves a place for your imagination and makes you project the most important part of the app.