Expensify approached us in 2022 wanting to completely revamp their brand and show up as one unified company with a language they could own. They were coming off a 2019 Super Bowl commercial that everyone internally loved. It was a little weird and off-kilter, and it established a whole world of wacky animated characters. None of that excitement or irreverence had reached the rest of the brand. Years of campaigns looked unrelated to each other, the core assets (logo, wordmark, photography) had each emerged at a different point in the company's history, and the tone of voice shifted wildly from one piece to the next.

Over a year-long design process, we took those disparate pieces and evolved them into one brand system built around the playfulness Expensify was beginning to be known for. It includes three custom typefaces developed with Miles Newlyn and CoType, a massive library of illustrations by Augenblick Studios that builds on the groundwork laid for the Super Bowl commercial, and a sonic identity designed by Antfood. Alongside those sit a color system, wordmark, icons, patterns, 3D assets, animation guidelines and layout tools. We delivered it all as a Figma design system, so anyone on their team can make marketing materials, social graphics and web pages themselves.

I was a designer on this project and contributed across every touchpoint, from the initial type and color exploration through to buttoning up the final assets. I contributed heavily to the early UI sketches and the motion applications, and helped establish the language for the 3D assets, which flex between photoreal executions and toon-shaded ones made to match the 2D illustration. I also helped structure the Figma design system the work was delivered in, so their team could use it without us.