Fintuity is the leading digital Independent Financial Advisery platform in the United Kingdom. The company offers a wide range of financial advisory services including pensions, protection, investments and mortgage advice.
A distinctive feature of Fintuity is The Virtual Adviser.
A distinctive feature of Fintuity is The Virtual Adviser.
The Virtual Adviser is an innovative AI driven online tool that provides a range of financial strategies based based on your goals. Using the latest in machine learning technology, they use a unique algorithm to assess the health of your finances and offer practical
real-time advice.
real-time advice.
Goal
The goal of the project was to create a mascot for the company that would represent this innovative technology, communicate with users, help, answer questions and cheer in difficult situations.
Archetype by Carl Jung
The Sage
Committed to helping the world gain deeper insight and wisdom, the Sage serves as the thoughtful mentor or advisor.
The Everyman
Radiates lightness, simplicity; is recognized as supportive and faithful.
Character
Goal
To teach client about financial health. To cheer them up in difficult situations.
Fears
Be deceived, unheard, ignored, unclear, burdensome, rude, judging.
outcome feelings
«I understand». Taught, encouraged to think and communicate and act.
Character voice
Informative, truthful, intelligent, authoritative but peppy and friendly.
Mind mAping
An important stage was the mind mapping process to generate words and ideas that could represent our mascot.
sketching
This is when I transformed all my ideas from from all the previously gained insights process into sketches.
The process of finding the right and was long and exciting. We had brainstorm collaborations brainstorm and co-working sessions with the design team and the product owner at every stage, so in the end we came to a very accurate visual representation of the company.
The process of finding the right and was long and exciting. We had brainstorm collaborations brainstorm and co-working sessions with the design team and the product owner at every stage, so in the end we came to a very accurate visual representation of the company.
a wise mentor
The first attempt was to use the image of a mentor or a sage who is ready to explain any incomprehensible information to the user with a kind smile and gently direct him in the right direction. First we thought about animals and fantastic creatures.
Professor Heimerdinger from animated series “Arcane” was our role model on this stage.
Professor Heimerdinger from animated series “Arcane” was our role model on this stage.
We chose a direction of a funny and super smart professor among the many variants with which we decided to move on.
After many experiments we realized that this is not exactly what we need. The company needed something more modern, personifying their main feature — the use of Artificial Intelligence for financial assistance.
We took all the good things from the old concept (wisdom, friendliness, mentoring) and decided to give it a more technological look.
We took all the good things from the old concept (wisdom, friendliness, mentoring) and decided to give it a more technological look.
ROBOTS — FACE
My task was to make the robot friendly so that it would inspire the user's trust. It was important to keep the robo-details in the image and not make it too human-like to avoid uncanny feelings among users (uncanny valley).
With the help of the character’s face an emotional connection is established with the user through the screen. Eye contact is always very important to a person, even if it is a painted robot :)
ROBOTS — BODY PARTS
Having heard from the owner of the product design team where and how the character is planned to be used, I decided that the presence of hands is necessary. The mascot should be able to interact with the environment, hold objects and gesticulate.
here must be a grabbing function for the hands — the character must be able to hold objects in his hands and show gestures.
PERSONA
In each of the three approaches, I decided to focus on the different qualities of the mascot's persona and see which of these would reflect the company's voice best.
1
LITTLE ASSISTANT
At first I tried to focus on friendliness. I made sketches of a cute, child-like robot that will be able to touch the hearts of users.
The levitating body of the robot is very convenient for design — it is easy to place it anywhere, it does not need any support or a flat surface and takes up little space.
2
FINANCIAL ASSISTANT
The second way involved focusing on his similarity with the real employees of the company - professional, ready to help at any time and having a lot of knowledge about finance.
The focus in «clothing» was on the office suits, especially on the British ones (double-breasted jacket).
3
AI ASSISTANT
The point was to show the most important outstanding feature of the company — the use of Artificial Intelligence to help its customers. Unfortunately, this is also its weakest point — such advanced and new technologies often scare users. That’s where our mascot could help.
By making the character the personification of AI (smart, futuristic and super-technological) and adding human traits (friendliness, emotionality) to him, we will establish a connection and understanding between users and advanced technologies of the company.
RESULT
We realized that there are pros and cons in each version. So taking all the good things from each concept, I came up with the character design that we unanimously considered the most successful.
FINTUITY — THE FINAL VERSION
BODY DESIGN
The body is human-like and retains its proportions so that, on a subconscious level, the user can associate AI with his own kind.
But it was still important to show that this is the future. The body floats, it has no mechanical joints like the conventional robots does. Also there is not a single sharp angle in the plasticity of the body to convey the calmness and friendliness coming from the mascot.
PERSONALITY
Like was sad earlier AI Assistant will easily help users to understand and accept Fintuity’s new technologies. She’s super smart, confident but also friendly and soft.
STYLES
Different situations require different visual styles of the mascot. Fintuity has three main styles - outlined (only stroke), outlined with purple fill, outlined with gradient fill. Due to two additional “cut off” styles (without stroke), the mascot can be used on backgrounds with a gradient and any graphics.
MAIN STYLES
ADDITIONAL STYLES
SOLID PURPLE PALETTE
GRADIENT PALETTE
character builder
With the help of the Character Builder that I created in Figma, the designers of the company can create thousands of different poses by themselves. With the CB, you can:
· choose the visual style of the mascot
· put any left and right arms to the character
· choose any hand for each arm
· give the mascot an object
· choose legs
· choose facial expression and head tilt
· put any left and right arms to the character
· choose any hand for each arm
· give the mascot an object
· choose legs
· choose facial expression and head tilt
emotions
Fintuity has a wide range of emotions for any situation. The character will be actively and often used to interact directly with the user and «talk» with them, so this amount of emotion is necessary to create a sense of real dialogue.
limbs
With the help of the Character Builder, designers can combine all the parts of the mascot's body with each other. Thanks to the variety of arms, legs and hands I designed, CB is able to create such a large number of poses.
LEGS
ARMS
HANDS
items
I created a set of fifteen levitating objects for Fintuity that she can hold in her hands. The items were selected based on a survey of the company's designers and all of them are related to the company's activity (financial assistance).
The items can be used together with the mascot or independently.
The items can be used together with the mascot or independently.
