James Finance – Artificial Intelligence for Credit Risk
James is a software solution for financial institutions to build, validate and monitor credit risk models that are extra robust and accurate while being compliant with regulation.
Building software for financial institutions is a tricky thing. One of the big hurdles in the way is that the buyer of our product is rarely the user. The C-level people of the institutions are the ones buying, but then the Risk officers, modellers and finance and IT consultants are the ones using it. Guess what? If the C-level guys don’t see the money, they don’t buy it; if the users don’t like it, they don’t buy it.
While working on this project, I was also working on the UX and UI design of the software, so I wanted to make the brand something that would talk to both the buyer of the product, but also its user. We needed to be kind of shiny and high-end tech, but also friendly and professional. With this kind of technology, the main point is that we need to be reliable and robust. Millions of your preferred currency can be lost or won because of one single credit decision.
So, the main characteristics that needed to be portrayed with this brand were: smart (both as in clever, and as in good looking), helpful, accurate, professional. The perfect balance between the “Big Four” consultant and the tech startup.
The choice of brand colour is a mix of green and blue. Green is usually the colour that represent finance and money, and blue usually represents technology, science and professionalism.
The triangular shape was chosen not only because of its sharpness, but also because it’s a “light” shape. It doesn’t become a burden, it makes your life easier. There are 4 triangles, because James has 4 main modules that make the product. This simple visual structure also allows for flexibility when developing a visual language that derives from the main brand (check out the Christmas newsletter header example or the animation on the website background).
