Bransolute's brand refresh for AjoCard conveys its vision to deliver financial services to the excluded
For this project, Bransolute set out to convey AjoCard’s goal to “empower individuals to manage their finances through an agency banking model and actualise their vision of ‘Banking for Everyone.’”
Nigerian branding agency Bransolute is behind the brand refresh for AjoCard, a financial technology company that is simplifying banking for underserved communities, which is aimed at conveying its new vision and facilitating the next step in the company’s evolving journey.
Founded in 2018, AjoCard is focused on making it easy for the underserved and unbanked to manage their money and make payments securely and conveniently.
For this project, Bransolute set out to convey AjoCard’s goal to “empower individuals to manage their finances through an agency banking model and actualise their vision of ‘Banking for Everyone.’”
“AjoCard approached us for a brand refresh towards the end of 2022,” Funsho Felix, founder and chief strategist at Bransolute, tells The Creatives Note. “They have been in existence since 2018 and had done some work internally. But they were at the stage where they needed an agency to partner with them on design.”
Bransolute was the design partner AjoCard needed for their next phase. “For the project, we designed their new identity and worked on their website. We also extended the new identity across all their brand touchpoints,” says Felix.
“Working with the founders and key stakeholders, we crafted a creative strategy that resonated with the brand. We arrived at a stable foundation that will serve as the foundation for the evolution of the brand’s creative ecosystem.”
After defining the strategy, Bransolute proceeded to design a new logo. “Because the brand had some brand equity, we knew we were going to retain some of their brand elements,” Felix shares. “A drastic change will be a lot of change for their customers.”
While they were going to retain some of their brand elements, the logo needed a complete change. “The old logo was sort of cliché. It needed to be changed,” says Felix.
“We designed and presented a new logo—which will be the reference point for every other thing we design—to the stakeholders but from the feedback we got, we had to go back to the drawing board.”
It took three presentations to arrive at the winning logo, says Felix. “They loved the third idea we presented. The presentation was a stunner. You could see the excitement on their faces,” he shares. “It was exciting to get their buy-in.”
The New AjoCard Identity
The new AjoCard identity is inspired by the refined strategic brand promise: ‘Banking for everyone.’ “The logo embodies this concept, portraying a vibrant and playful persona,” Felix notes.
“For stakeholders, it encapsulates the revitalised business strategy and a culture of dynamic growth. For customers, the symbol signifies a commitment to consistently easy banking, exciting innovations, and an abundance of positive experiences.”
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The new logo is a combination of three things: the brand initials to represent their values; palm branches to signify their forward-thinking approach; and an abstract rectangle to represent the unbanked—which are the target customers of AjoCard.
“While we tried to retain the existing brand colours, we increased their hues to freshen them up,” Felix shares. “We also added more complimentary colours.”
For typography, a new typeface was chosen to complement the new logo.
“After this direction was approved, we went on to design other brand collaterals and assets,” says Felix. “We designed a new website as well.”
Before handing over to their in-house team, we designed a comprehensive brand guide and created templates as well, says Felix. “We made sure to document everything they will need and trained them on how to use them,” he adds.
“It’s exciting to see the new identity we designed on their terminals,” Felix remarks.
“Thank you for the great job… [the bransolute] team delivered on time,” Titilola Feyijimi, COO of AjoCard, shares.
