I co-led Brand Creative for a hardware & software product that would transform the way people connect with their money, created as the first lifestyle fashion product by a financial institution. I developed a range of packaging prototypes and logistics, designed the logomark (provided direction for the logotype), outlined a strategic approach for partnerships, and developed concepts for web & store design.
Audience
We focused on the customer segment characterized by people who...
have the eventual, but not immediate, ability to reach long term goals
make financial decisions on emotion and intuition
value customization and authenticity
have malleable financial behaviors they are actively looking to improve
Financial well being is a bit like fitness. It requires awareness of best practices, disciplined action, & end-goal focus.
Driving Insights
We strive to share success with our customers by re-imagining the way they can relate to their personal finances. We stand for the encouragement of financial confidence, individual engagement, and empowerment of our end consumers.
Financial illiteracy creates a need to educate people to spend and save wisely
Technology provides the opportunity for customers to better track their behavior
It's not about how much customers make or where they've spent their money, it's understanding why the customer behaves the way they do.
The card collection featured unique materials adorned with only the customer's signature & optional 1-of-1 generative patterns to further emphasize the products key value, Ownership
Team Composition
Software + Industrial Designers –
The card enables users to express themselves through lifestyle focused financial hardware paired with an innovative companion app.
Researchers –
We took a human centered approach to understanding our target audience and some of their day to day challenges with personal finances through design thinking workshops and ethnographic interviews.
Visual Designers –
Crafting an approachable aesthetic that personifies the product & simultaneously empowers the user at every level of engagement.
Hackathon
The first two weeks on the project designers were brought in for a design hackathon. I facilitated workshops to brainstorm product names, establish a brand brief, assemble moodboards, and kickoff logo/type iterations. Those concepts were used to lock down an aesthetic direction and eventually, a full logotype.
Selections from our design workshops
Final Logo mark and type
I developed an animation to further elevate the brand story & introduce the final logotype to the company.
Partnerships
We collaborated with multimedia lifestyle brand Yummertime to take the card out into the world and explore how it might show up across social media channels. Their aesthetic brought the card to life.
Packaging
Mailer mockups, color variations, form explorations & pilot packaging prototypes
Marketing
We wanted to tell the material story behind the cards and show how it could be expressed in ads and marketing campaigns. We paired the cards with places, people, and objects that spoke to the unique qualities of each card. Wood inlay card on the desk of an industrial designer, plastic yellow for a sunny day at the beach, navy with a bespoke pattern amongst fashion accessories.
The Elements Card
The card went to market (independent of the software component) and was rebranded to the Elements card leveraging the Project Change visual direction as it’s foundation. The logomark was slightly altered and applied to the existing web mockups. A storefront was created for the product launch at SXSW in 2017 based on a pop up experience I created in San Francisco a year earlier.
