Compass
A concept for a bank that wanted the freelancer’s first account won, not by selling checking, but by helping them find the work that funds it.
| Client | Global retail bank (name withheld under NDA) |
|---|---|
| Role | Creative Lead |
| Team | 4 (product design, research, content strategy) |
| Timeline | 8 weeks (2020) |
| Scope | Product concept, experience strategy, visual system, data-visualization framework, clickable prototype |
| Methods | Concept sketching, end-to-end flow design, sprint prototyping, design systems |
| Status | Concept : delivered, spun out to seed funded neobank |
“We stopped designing a bank account and started designing the month before it.”
The problem
Banks win primary accounts at one moment: direct deposit setup for a new job. Freelancers never have that moment; irregular income, many employers, and products that were checking accounts with "freelance" in the marketing. My client wanted the segment and had no right to it yet.
The approach
We reframed the product from an account into a platform on four pillars: banking, finance, jobs, community, with jobs leading and the insured account underneath. Three passes: concept sketches, a 45-screen sprint prototype, then a visualization framework built for four data type across six visual families.
The decisions
I put jobs ahead of banking in the IA. Every instinct was to lead with the account. The account is the destination, not the doorway, the deposit follows the gig.
I made the nine-question interview skippable. Personalization needs the data, the user needs an exit. Bronze, silver and gold profile states let you leave at 30% and come back.
I put competitors’ rates next to their own accounts. Link an outside savings account paying 1.99% and the app badges our 2.89% inline against it. Aggregation stops being table stakes and becomes the acquisition mechanic.
I built one visualization language, not per-screen charts. Two weeks up front made every later screen a composition problem instead of a design problem.
The outcome
The concept gave the bank a defensible position in a segment it had no product for, and an argument for treating job matching as an acquisition channel rather than a feature. The engagement closed in April 2020, as the freelance economy it was built for went into freefall. The thesis held, freelancer-first banking became a seed funded category within two years, and was built by others.