Gretel designed a sophisticated navigation system rooted in the compass metaphor. The live website became a pharma conversion funnel. This is what was lost — and what was restored.
"The gap between a brand identity and a live website is where brand equity goes to die." — Curious Endeavor
Gretel's core concept — navigation, direction, guidance — was entirely absent from the live site. The redesign makes it structural: the compass motif in the hero, "Find your path" as the primary CTA, "A direction, not a destination" as the brand statement. The identity isn't decoration; it's the skeleton of the page.
"See if you qualify" positions users as patients before they're people. The redesign flips the relationship: "Find your path" positions Noom as the guide and the user as the one in control. This isn't just brand voice — it's conversion strategy. People buy guidance. They tolerate clinical qualification.
The live site cycles through dark teal, orange CTAs, white, grey, and back again with no logic. Each section imports its own mood. The redesign establishes a clear palette hierarchy: white/cream as the ground, Noom green as the brand anchor, coral as a single intentional accent. The color tells a story instead of shouting for attention.
A brand built around intelligence, behavior change, and guidance deserves type that signals those values. Source Serif 4 at light italic weight for headlines creates warmth, intelligence, and calm authority. Inter handles the practical work. Together they create a voice — something the single-typeface live site never had.
Conversion-optimized pages are dense because they're afraid you'll leave. Brand-confident pages are spacious because they know you'll stay. The redesign removes the blog carousel, Instagram grid, FAQ accordion, and redundant product deep-dives from the homepage. Each section earns its place. Whitespace becomes a brand signal: "We have nothing to prove."
Noom paid Gretel to build them a compass. Then they shipped a pharmacy ad. The brand gap isn't a design problem — it's a prioritization problem. When conversion teams own the homepage without a brand mandate, the identity gets stripped one "optimize this section" at a time until nothing is left but buttons.