A Fintech startup focused on educating the general public in planning, saving, & investing money through it's financial savings app, education portal, games/videos, podcast.

During my time as an art director, I’ve oversaw and help create IP development of characters, branding & logo/logotype/typography redesign. While also consulting on UI interface in app development in iOS, along with consulting on an education-based investing game designed to teach kids smart ways of money managing and investing.

Revamping Logo & Logotype

One of my first few tasks was to explore different variations I could take the logo done by the previous designer. I was prompted to create within the framework of the original design. So I decided to play with it including trying different styles while keeping the key design preferences they wanted.

Logotype

The next step was to create a unique typeface for the logo so it could stand alone even without the tree logo.

The Creation of Fin & Finmojis

Fin started out as a concept that would be the face for Finmojis. Continuing the tree motif from the logo made sense to explore a botanical character but other options were also taken into consideration by the suggestion of the client.

-/ Final Design

These were explorations to reflect distilled emotions of "Behavioral Bias and Cognitive Expressions" that would indicate financial personality types. Which we would expand later on.

-Exploring Variations & Different Styles

-/ 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Iterations

We tried exploring different shapes organic/inorganic, nature/tech. Taking inspiration from Microsoft Words assistant "Clippy."

Creating of Penny & Froogal (Yes, it's spelled that way.)

The idea behind developing characters was to help introduce out younger audience to relatable figures to better teach them concepts of money management in a fun and relatable manner.

-/ 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Iterations

As we whittled away at the designs it became clear that Penny & Froogal needed to be not only the same age but also not too young but ageless. With clear traits that inspire relatability and confidence.

So we began focusing on relatable characters. Referencing popular cartoon character designs. These were some of the designs from the early stages towards the end as we narrowed down character traits and features.

-Pennys Rough Animation Test

The end goal was to create small animations to be used as character intros for iOS app, web, and social media use.