Vanilla Brand Design: Building a Trustworthy Brand

Company: Vanilla Role: Vice President of Design, Co-founding Member Dates: June 2019 → Present

Background

Our commitment to design has been a pillar of Vanilla's branding from the beginning. In the first week after our company was founded, David Hauser, our CEO at the time, arranged for a kickoff meeting in Los Angeles. The objective was to establish the foundation for our company name, mission, and values.

We collectively engaged in numerous exercises and ideation workshops during an intensive multi-day session to crystallize Vanilla's goals and mission. Through these discussions, we defined Vanilla's mission: to help advisors shape their clients' legacy. Our approach to achieving this mission is to empower advisors to shine as rock stars in their field.

From the beginning, my goal was to set Vanilla apart from traditional fintech software for advisors. I wanted advisors to perceive Vanilla as cutting-edge, contemporary software tailored to their needs rather than just another tool from an existing company. To achieve this, we focused on creating a minimal yet practical visual identity that embodied our brand's essence: clear, direct, and innovative.

Establishing the Foundation for Vanilla's Brand Design

As we started from scratch and searched for Product-Market Fit (PMF), we kept the visual identity simple or "vanilla." Our initial brand logotype was crafted using Apax from Optimo Typefoundry, a modern grotesque typeface that stood out from the played-out Circular or Futura sans-serif identities. This choice was intentional; we wanted to establish a distinct typographic feel.

This minimal yet practical design direction influenced all aspects of our branding, from marketing materials and presentation decks to the initial product design system. As the designer, I ensured that our branding reflected a high standard of design quality, setting the stage for Vanilla to be recognized as a leader in providing innovative, advisor-centric solutions.

By establishing this foundation, we positioned Vanilla as a brand that advisors could trust and feel confident in, knowing it was built with their specific needs in mind. This strategy helped us stand out, paving the way for Vanilla's continued growth.

Exploring New Conceptual Directions

As part of our continuous improvement process, we began exploring new conceptual directions for Vanilla's brand with Luke Williams. These early explorations were essential in helping us consider different perspectives and innovative ideas for our brand identity. However, during the leadership transition from David Hauser to our current CEO, Gene Farrell, we maintained an intentionally simple identity to ensure stability and consistency.

Refresh

As Vanilla evolved, so did our need to refine and expand our branding. We hired our first brand designer, Jacob Halpern, formerly a senior brand designer for MAL/TBWA/Apple, to lead this effort. Jacob's expertise was instrumental in ensuring that our brand and product designs were seamlessly integrated.

When Jim Sinai joined as CMO, we launched our brand refresh project. Jacob Halpern, working closely with Jim and his head of content, Daniel Brockley, spearheaded this effort. We held an in-person brand workshop to redefine our brand values and positioning. This workshop marked the beginning of a comprehensive refresh of our old identity, addressing typographic inconsistencies and exploring new color schemes and graphic treatments that better reflected our refined brand values.

In late 2022, the design and marketing teams initiated the brand refresh to enhance our brand's consistency and visual impact. The process began with an intensive one-day workshop in Los Angeles, held at the Advice Period offices. During the workshop, we analyzed competitor strategies and conducted a self-assessment to identify areas for improvement.

Key insights from the workshop included the need to better represent Vanilla's innovation. To guide our visual exploration, we identified three core adjectives: Innovation, Trustworthiness, and Simplicity.

Following the workshop, we developed a structured visual branding strategy. This included a refined color palette with black, white, and grays as foundation colors, complemented by a primary brand color (blue) and two accent colors (soft blue and brand green). This color palette was designed to convey trustworthiness, friendliness, expertise, and a contemporary look and feel.

Our typographic choices also played a crucial role. We adopted the Haffer Square XH Bold typeface from Displaay Type Foundry for our logotype, ensuring a unique and modern aesthetic. The "single story" lowercase "a" in the Haffer SQ font family became a key typographic identifier of our brand.

We extended the refreshed brand identity across all marketing materials, including the new website, social accounts, printed documents, and Google Slides templates. This cohesive approach ensured that our brand identity was consistently represented across all platforms and materials.

Data-Driven Marketing Site

In Spring 2022, we launched a new website, marking a significant milestone in our branding journey. This site was designed to be a hub for all things estate planning for advisors and was optimized for SEO to increase our online presence.

Working with my former Rubric Studio partner, Justin Gilman, and our marketing partners at ProductiveShop, we designed a new marketing site aligned with our refreshed brand identity. The site has been successful, increasing our monthly visitors from 2k to over 14k within a year and leading to a pipeline of prospects for us to meet our revenue goals.

Currently, we are working on a data-driven redesign of the marketing homepage to transition from SEO-focused strategies to conversion rate optimization.

Expansion and tie into product design system

The brand refresh was not just about aesthetics but about integrating our brand identity with our product design system. Staff Product Designer Joel Speasmaker was pivotal in this integration, ensuring a consistent and cohesive user experience across all touchpoints. As design director, I provided feedback and guidance to Joel throughout this process, maintaining our high design quality standards.

Design as One Team

A critical aspect of our brand success has been the tight integration between our brand design and product design. We operate as a single design function serving both marketing and product needs. This organizational approach ensures that all our designs are of the highest quality and maintain a consistent brand voice across all touchpoints.

Today, the design team partners with and supports all of marketing's efforts, including Vanilla Academy, LegacyNow, video projects, and conference materials. This collaboration ensures that our brand identity is consistently represented across all initiatives and that our marketing efforts are visually cohesive and impactful.

Leveraging Agency Experience

Thanks to my extensive agency experience, we've delivered results well beyond our available resources and budget. This background has enabled us to execute high-quality projects efficiently and cost-effectively, ensuring we maintain a high design standard without incurring excessive costs.

As a leader at the company, I advocate for high-quality design in all areas, including marketing and internal materials. My role has included project management, hiring freelance contractors, providing design feedback, and managing stakeholder expectations with the marketing and executive teams.

Key Results

• Website Launch: Increased monthly visitors from 2k to over 14k within a year.
• Brand Projects: Executed hundreds of projects, including conference booth designs, brand identity design, physical packaging, merch design, presentation decks, product illustrations, videos, animations, and offsite event designs.
• Brand and Product Integration: Maintained a cohesive and high-quality design language across all platforms and materials.
• Data-Driven Redesign: Currently working on a redesign of the marketing homepage focused on conversion rate optimization, with a plan developed in collaboration with Nick Tran, our marketing associate.