A vibrant brand refresh for a specialist mortgage lender
Foundation Home Loans are a specialist mortgage lender who create mortgage products for homeowners with complex needs - like people who are self-employed, own small businesses or have multiple properties. The specialist mortgage market is a niche but competitive one, with multiple similar size brands competing for borrowers’ and brokers’ attention.
Visually, this market is crowded with visual cliches and bland imagery focused on houses and property, and general vagaries around the positive aspects of the lender. Foundation’s previous design direction was struggling to stand out in all this noise, and amongst their competitors.
The new creative approach taken flips this on its head, and focuses on the specific problems lenders have first - and then showing how Foundation can solve those. The visual direction embraces Foundation’s brand yellow, tweaks it, then dials it up to 11 - doing away with photography entirely, and focusing solely on striking, fun and attention grabbing 3D visuals.
Project tasks
Design direction
Advertising design
Web design
Animation direction
Alongside a new print and digital advertising campaign, I led the team on a brand identity refresh, boosting and tightening up the colour palette, introducing new guidance on typography and creating definition around use of the 3D visuals.
I also led on a redesign of the Foundation website, bringing in the bold new look, creating a lighter, fresher visual style throughout, and making some more functional, UX driven updates.
Additionally I directed a set of short product specific animations, that took the 3D visual style and applied it - through motion - to more practical, detailed messaging around rates and offerings.
