CleverCX Rebrand & Product Logos

CleverCX creates financial tools that aim to level the financial market and bring financial advice to everyone. After expanding their offerings to multiple sub-brands, they wanted to update their visual identity to align better with their new goals and a demographic focused on 30–40 year old women. They wanted it to have life and energy — not the institutional, corporate ethos of other brands in the space.

The result is a concept that synergizes the elements of lifestyle brands in the space with stability and a softness. There is energy, but it's controlled energy. When shown to the target demographic, they overwhelmingly preferred this more upbeat expression.

The process started with a few brand workshops helping to focus the target and define the brand values — a simplified brand process that paid dividends in the concept phase. There, we tried different ways to espouse the values in visuals with different priorities.

One of the tools I like to use is called a stylescape. At the beginning of a brand process, a stylescape is a prototyping tool that uses found imagery and existing design to help determine the tone and mood we're shooting for as the brand develops. As a brand takes shape, the chosen stylescape is updated with the elements of the new brand and example imagery to demonstrate the overall effect.

Below you'll find the final and near-final stylescapes for CleverCX — and as a glimpse into the branding process, the initial stylescapes provided to the client, showing how multiple directions were presented to help solidify the chosen one.

Below are the stylesscapes pitched as part of the discovery process. Emphasizing different aspects of the brand of Clever could lead to vastly different directions. This variety helped the client make decisions and help articulate their brand better, unearthing valuable information that helped the final direction.