WYSIWYG
We’re proud of GitKraken’s unique aesthetic. Our beautiful Git GUI stands out. The tale of how GitKraken rose from the sea is a reflection of us as a company; here’s how our company culture inspires the products we design.
Design Inspiration
GitKraken has really evolved since its start as a 30-day project, but it maintains some consistent themes.
Beauty matters to us. Our team of designers and developers are also artists. When concepting GitKraken design elements, they were inspired by sci fi images and subway maps because of the way in which information is displayed. Look familiar?
We were able to concentrate on building a product that is intuitive by analyzing what was already out there, and then rethinking industry standards by drawing inspiration from other mediums that have proven to be successful in terms of UI/UX.
We wanted to build a Git GUI that provided a consistent experience across Windows, Mac and Linux. So we did, by utilizing Electron, which at the time was a very new technology gaining rising adoption.
We wanted you to have drag and drop ability like no other Git GUI because we knew this would improve productivity.
We designed the visual graph and commit message text for easy readability. Our branch/tag labels are on the left side of the graph, so they’re easier to read and interact with (for example, dragging and dropping). This allows for the commit messages to be displayed in a separate column, left-aligned. In our graph, branches stay in their own column until they merge back into another branch. All of these design considerations make reading the visual graph info and the commit message text much easier, setting GitKraken apart from other Git GUIs.
GitKraken: The Invertebrate with a Spine
Our company, Axosoft, is intentionally structured to be… well… unstructured. We’re at the office. We work together face to face, every day. We collaborate and discuss—all of the time. We sit (or stand) near people that own similar responsibilities to ours. Slack is our primary communication exchange in the office—so our conversations are most often company wide. Everyone in our company has valued input, regardless of topic and position. This is how we move fast. Make fast. Deliver fast. (OK, and catch a mistake here or there…and fix it…fast!)
We’re all considered leaders, responsible for our part in shaping the direction of our product. We have a wee bit of management structure, but we keep as close to a flat hierarchy as possible to maximize the efficiency in communication and ownership of our product.
Our Sea World
Our habitat is meant to delight the eye. Foster creativity. Stimulate thinking. To be beautiful and inspire beauty.
Travel is valued highly here—so much so that we’re sent away to admire what makes up our planet.
As a company, we look to what’s visually delightful. We developed GitKraken with visual organization- so you can take your mind off version control worries and concentrate on what you are developing.
The Dog Food Club
How do we know what you need so well? We eat our own dog food here. GitKraken has evolved successfully because we use our own Git GUI to manage our code. Of course, developers are developing GitKraken while using GitKraken, right? In addition to our dedicated user experience sessions, we use GitKraken to develop GitKraken, so our product is constantly being tested.
We take none of this for granted. We’re by your side, creating a beautiful product to help you create beautiful products, too.