Prodigy Finance.
The fintech disruptor that changed international student loans.
Creative Director, Prodigy Finance
During my six years with the company we enjoyed incredible growth, opening offices on three more continents, helping students in 130 countries, and growing from just 12 staffers to 200.
I worked with all teams across the business as we developed brand tone, look and feel, websites, apps, and systems to implement design and briefing across the world that could speak to a complicated customer base in a highly regulated environment. I designed across the full consumer journey as well as how we communicated our mission internally. My skills for cross-functional work, clear written and visual communication as well as the ability to maintain a laser-like focus on business goals were my most valuable contribution.
My proudest moment was creating a video that highlighted the impact we had on more than 10,000 students’ lives. It drove home how much we meant to our customers and brought our Cape Town team - many of whom were not yet exposed to the power of the brand - to tears.
Here is a small selection of work including brand values, stationery, recruitment materials, office interiors, web layouts and video content designed to engage staff across four continents and customers from 150 countries.
Brand development and guidelines
As the company grew, so too did the brand need to evolve. This meant a brand update: simplifying the logo, careful selection of a range of blues that would communicate trust without looking stale or overly financial, and developing iconography and visual assets to support the brand.
To scale this, effectively building robust, easy-to-use guidelines was crucial - ensuring all team members across four offices had access to supporting information on how to use our brand and its assets.
The guidelines covered everything from look and feel, tone of voice, new iconographic styles and colours, to how to speak to customers in various markets across emails, marketing media and phone calls.
Brand values
Design of new brand values in updated branding around the Prodigy Finance offices to keep staff engaged with our purpose, mission and the way we get things done.
Iconography
I oversaw and directed icon design as part of the Prodigy Finance brand update. The icons were designed to support communication across digital and print channels as part of the new visual language.
They were made to be simple in style with an element of “quirkiness” to facilitate the communication of complicated financial concepts in an easy and not overly-serious way. this was to cut through the text-heavy communications people are so used to seeing when dealing with loan applications and banks.
Social content
A range of post-templates created for different content types on Instagram (shown above), Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin to allow for consistent, quick content generation.
Proposed website update
Internal comms and recruitment
Working closely with the people team, we developed an employee value proposition and a suite of materials for recruitment and job fairs to help attract the best talent as well as the right people for the business.
Another project with the people team was keeping our spaces looking the part and communicating the right message, no matter which office one was in.
Impact report
To coincide with our 10th anniversary, Prodigy looked at its own impact on international students globally. Our first Impact Report provided a deeper understanding of the changes graduate education and access to finance can have across the globe. This report was available digitally, and was shared with investors and guests at our first Impact event in London.
Swag
When your customers are students, giving them swag they can use is a simple way to create brand awareness on campus - which is why it was important that promotional items were useful, good quality and aligned to our brand wherever possible.
Communicating company culture
Capturing the spirit of Prodigy Finance was one of the highlights of my time with the company. To do this we filmed 15 unscripted interviews with team members from our New York, London and Cape Town offices.
By allowing people to freely express themselves when talking about their careers and experience at the company, along with footage from student interviews and office events, we created an authentic video that attracted the right talent. As an added bonus, it acted as a reminder of why we did the work we were doing.
Building credibility with real people
The world of finance can be complicated, especially when you’re talking to students from 150 countries, schools, investors, and staff from four offices around the world about a disruptive product. These are four of the 30+ videos created using real people: students who had taken loans from Prodigy Finance and volunteered their time as ambassadors for the brand.
