Leading design from the ground up — four zero-to-one products, a design system, a visual identity, and a team that could actually ship.
Overview
Self Financial helps people with thin or damaged credit build a credit history through financial products that are genuinely useful and not predatory. When I joined in 2018, the design function was essentially a blank canvas. No system, no team, no established visual language.
Over seven years, I built a design team of six, created the company's design system and visual identity from scratch, and led design on four major zero-to-one product launches. Product, marketing, brand: every touchpoint went through our team.
Self has been representative of what I've come to value most in my career: fast moving, impactful work with a great mission, when autonomy and accountability are equally important. Building a high performing team with aligned values while still being able to do the work alongside them has been something I am just so very proud of.
Branding
The company was named Self Lender when I joined, which referenced how the main credit building product works — a small bank held CD you pay back over time. The two issues with this were it did not allow room for growth and no one likes a lender.
The decision was made quickly to rebrand to Self — putting the focus on the customer, and establishing a core of the brand that it is not a savior. Rebuilding credit is a path you commit to, Self is a toolkit to get you there.
I created the logo to use confident letterforms that felt like a strong foundation. I placed a small easter egg in the period that ends the logo like a statement: it is not a perfect circle, because no one is perfect, mistakes happened, and Self is not here to judge.
The Self logo on the brand's primary blue
Excerpts from the Self Brand Book I designed.
The Self / Spurs partnership is announced at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, TX.
The sponsored Self Concourse at the Moody Center in Austin, TX.
Product Design
The Self design system started as a necessity and became a competitive advantage. Consistent components, documented patterns, and clear usage guidelines meant our small team could move quickly without sacrificing quality — and gave engineering a reliable foundation to build on.
Product Design
Self's latest 0-to-1 product is Self Cash — an EWA product to help customers smooth out patches of unstable income. This project was completed on an accelerated schedule which was extremely impressive due to the scope of the product.
I created the wireframes for the product's functional broad strokes in close partnership with Product and Engineering, and my team conducted the competitive and user research as well as the final designs.
Originally, we intended to use a popular UI in Self's products — a slider — to choose between the amount the customer would like to borrow. User testing revealed that showing suggested increments was more important, and this was adjusted for launch.
Original wireframe for offer screen
The adjusted production version
Next Project
Customer service for millions of players →