Blockchain Startup – Building a Brand

I joined Project Nexus as the Design Director to create a brand and digital experience with an authentic and empathetic perspective on the fintech industry.

This was a great opportunity for me to play a very hands-on role defining the design direction of the early stage start up.

Project Nexus is an all-in-one investment solution for Crypto, Real-Estate and Stocks.

We were a fully remote team spread across UK, Germany, Vietnam, Pakistan & Iran with the head office in Dubai.

Project

Digital Transformation

Client

Project Nexus.App

My Role

Founding Designer
Designing all brand touch points including:
UI/UX App Design, Responsive Web Design, Branding, Social Media, OOH Ads, Illustration Systems, Icon Creation, Pitch/Presentation Decks & Motion Graphics.

CREATING BRAND VALUE THROUGH DESIGN

Case Study & Visual Identity

Overview:
Project Nexus is an all-in-one investment solution for Crypto, Real-Estate and Stocks.

The Challenge:
Project Nexus found itself situated between two contexts – pioneering new economic conventions while striving to coexist with traditional investment apps. In need of an identity refresh to effectively navigate this landscape.
The original brand identity was a cobbled together, Frankenstein of designers work from previous months.

Solution:
As the founding designer, I set about designing an identity system that would unite the digital financial future with the trust and security of tradition.

Transforming a brands visual identity is a delicate art which requires a deep understanding of it’s essence. My visual identity was designed to inspire, while bridging the product and marketing for a consistent, compelling narrative rooted in clarity and security.

Every image, icon, illustration, animation and asset was meticulously crafted ensuring my concepts balanced tradition, modernity and forward thinking.

The Goal:
Guide the brand into a more unified and mature expression. Instead of rushing to design, I dedicated time to ideation, ensuring the new identity would resonate and endure. My aim was to design a system that remained recognisable, adaptable and full of personality. Positioning the brand to demonstrate expertise and credibility within the industry.

Deliverables:
I developed a design strategy, icon library, illustration library, motion system, design system, website, app ux/ui, marketing conversation pillars along with design principles and guidelines for each.

ANIMATING WITH PURPOSE

Motion Design Language

I defined and documented the Motion Design System, with After Effects and Figma templates for designers, Motion Tokens for engineers & Confluence documentation and reference videos for the wider team.

A well defined Motion Design Language connects brand values to a like-minded audience, allowing us to forge deeper emotional connections.

Creating Motion Principles and Guidelines which match your brands personality – make more cohesive and consistent product decisions going forward.

Values – How we as a brand approach motion design.
Principles – A set of principles to guide the team in creating consistent, on-brand animations.

Benefits for the business:
The Motion Design System will create repeatability in motion-patterns, time savings with motion-tokens for engineers and ux consistencies throughout the customer journey.

Benefits for our customers:
Motion with purpose helps customers navigate our products, tells a better brand story and can create deeper emotional connections.

PROTOTYPE VIDEO

App Walk Through

I created this video in After Effects & it was used as an app overview to entice potential investors.

LET’S GET SOCIAL

Marketing & Digital Creative Guidelines

I set the brand design direction, ran workshops to define the content pillars and themes, then created the Social Media and Digital Creative Guidelines brand book.

For Static Marketing Content, I built a Design System in Figma for creating Social Assets with components & variants which allowed my team to scale with speed and consistency.

For Video Marketing Content, I created responsive After Effects templates with custom-presets for animated text. I also defined motion-tokens so we could have consistent brand animations, intros & outros.

I lead all creation and delivery of dynamic creative design work from conception through to production. Collaborating with internal teams & external Marketing & PR companies – researching, brainstorming and creating new marketing concepts across social, websites, display ads, email marketing, video, print, event branding and promotional material.

I was the brand guardian ensuring all creative production was on-brand, on-brief and meeting accessibility standards.

OOH / OUT OF HOME

Outdoor Advertising

These were concepts I created based on the core business proposition where customers were able to invest in tokenised real-estate for as low as £5.