Apollo.com
One firm talking to four audiences under four sets of rules, where the design system is what stops that from becoming four websites.
| Client | Apollo Global Management |
|---|---|
| Role | Creative Lead |
| Team | 3-6 (design director, UX/UI designers, developers, project manager) |
| Timeline | 6 months (2024) |
| Scope | Creative direction and design oversight for the unauthenticated experience and the design system powering it |
| Methods | Creative direction, design system, design reviews |
| Status | Shipped : live at apollo.com |
“Everyone who matters sees the site before they trust you, so what they see had better resonate.”
The problem
Apollo speaks to four audiences from one domain: the general public, institutional investors, wealth professionals and public shareholders. Each needs different content under different disclosure rules, and each arrives expecting the same firm.
The approach
What exists on the live site, a persistent audience switcher that swaps context while holding the brand shell, an editorial platform, “THINK Capital,” running across the homepage, and a deep insights and transaction-case-study library carrying most of the proof.
One brand shell, four contexts — not four sites. The audience switcher sits in the top-left of every page and changes what you see without changing who you are looking at. The alternative, separate destinations per audience, is how a firm ends up with four design languages and four maintenance costs.
The campaign expresses through white space, type and motion, in a custom CMS. A brand platform this strong will pull page designs toward it. Designing different page types into a content management system ruled by a mini-design system, keeps the editorial voice loud and the compliance-bound pages intact.
Insights carry the proof, not product pages. An asset manager cannot demo its product. Transactions and thinking are the evidence, so the system gave them the strongest templates rather than treating them as a news backwater.
The decisions
The outcome
Apollo.com is live, serving four audiences from one shell. Since launch the campaign platform has absorbed several cycles of new editorial without the regulated pages needing special treatment. A system that keeps taking new material without fracturing is the outcome.