Humanizing a Fintech Brand
In 2023, the Stash message was falling flat with our users. Language like “building wealth” and “everyday Americans” wasn’t resonating and it was time to reconsider the Stash mission, vision, and voice. I worked closely with the Director of PR and Content Leads to rework the Stash Strategic Messaging. This update to our company language needed to be reflected in our visual language, as well.
Since our rebrand in 2020, Stash never had definitive brand guidelines. This left a lot of space for inconsistency across marketing and product design and hindered Stash designers, requiring them to learn the Stash visual language through the feedback of their peers and managers, rather than starting every project from an agreed upon set of guidelines.
I embarked on a brand evolution, aiming to weave the themes of confidence, optimism, and growth throughout our identity, humanizing the world of finance and investing. The secondary goal was to unify the Stash brand with a single creative direction and establish consistency across marketing and product experiences.
Brand Exploration
In translating the new strategic messaging into a visual language for Stash, I refined 3 directions that each met the goal of humanizing the brand in different ways.
Crafting Brand Guidelines
After finalizing the direction based on feedback from the CEO, I hosted a series of workshops to develop guidelines that would address the needs of both the product and marketing orgs and created a rollout plan and timeline. Below demonstrates some of the process work involved in this documentation undertaking.
