The lowercase “personal” wordmark in large blue letters on a glass office facade

Personal Capital → Empower · 2015–2024

Nine years
making money
feel personal.

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02 · My role

The in-house creative designer every team came to: executives, product, engineering, HR and the financial advisors. Paired with a copywriter, I developed options with the stakeholder; the creative director and CMO narrowed them down, and I took the chosen one through to final assets.

This case study: the brand, campaigns and the dashboard. The advisors’ guides and Cashius have their own: Wealth management → · Cashius →

Role
Sr. Visual Designer
Worked with
Execs, product, engineering, HR, advisors
Process
Copywriter pair → creative director → CMO
Context
Acquired by Empower, 2020

From a bar chart to a first name.

Personal Capital logo, 2009: a blue bar-chart tile beside PERSONAL CAPITAL in heavy capitals
2009The launch mark: a bar-chart tile and heavy capitals.
Personal Capital logo, 2015: small bars beside PERSONAL CAPITAL in spaced capitals
2015When I joined: the bars shrink, the name spreads out.
Personal Capital logo after the rebrand: personal in lowercase blue slab serif, CAPITAL in spaced capitals
2019“personal” takes the lead. An outside agency led the rebrand; some of my earlier concepts made it in, and I rolled it out.

03 · Identity

The “personal” wordmark in large 3D letters on a glass office facade

04 · In the real world

“personal”, in the real world: on the office facade, and carried through to every business card and brochure.

Personal blue#00D3FFEvery surface
Deep ink#002832Headlines
White#FFFFFFWordmark on blue
Cashius pink#DBB3D5The savings line

05 · Colour

06 · Advertising

Free tools + wealth management.

One ad for both halves of the business: a real face in greyscale under a cyan duotone, looking straight at you, a headline that signs off on “personal”, and the free planning tools that brought people in.

Magazine ad, 2020: a greyscale portrait under a cyan duotone, with the Personal Capital wordmark and Take the mystery out of your money
Two phones showing the Retirement Planner and Retirement Savings screens, annotated: run different scenarios, set saving goals, anticipate big expenses, create a spending plan

07 · Free tools

See all your accounts in one place.

Every account adding up to one net worth, on your phone: a vertical animated ad, with the App Store rating underneath.

Magazine spread in black: a smiling woman in greyscale, Worried about your retirement? We’re here for you. We’re personal, and on the facing page the Free Retirement Planner, scenarios, risk and hidden fees

08 · The Retirement Planner

For high-net-worth investors the system goes quiet: black pages, one portrait, and a single word in cyan.

09 · Motion

Animated display and social ads: equity, inflation, single stocks, spreadsheets. One idea per ad, readable in the three seconds before a thumb scrolls past.

10 · Hackathon

Turn your goals into milestones.

A new homepage, designed for a company hackathon: goals first, real client stories, the free tools in one place. Our team won first prize.

“The tool to beat.”
The New York Times, on the Personal Capital app

My first seat at the product table: a facelift for the dashboard, alongside product and engineering. One of my ideas shipped: the sidebar, the first thing you see when you log in.

Retirement planner dashboard on desktop with floating chart cards; the sidebar on the left lists net worth and every accountMy idea: the sidebar
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