Consumer Finance Institute Brand Identity

CFI would serve as a hub for research, data, and analysis about consumer payments and credit. Because these areas of focus inspired research across multiple departments, different economists and researchers contribute to the institute through their own departments. But, the institute remained its own entity as a branded programme sitting besides the various departments.

This brand structure allowed the institute to collaborate internally and externally without worrying about siloed content verticals. Externally, the institute could partner with conferences or organisations, promoting the institute’s experts and research. Internally, the branding allowed for CFI content to be signalled as distinct and separate from a department’s standard content.

For the mark itself, an exhaustive iterative design process led to three finalists, for which the chosen and ultimately implemented version was unanimous. A rational geometric typeface drew upon the institute’s rigorous, data-driven, analytical nature. The geometric shapes of an abstract C, F, and I nestled together, representing how the various groups of experts and expertise fit together into a single institute.

A bright “electric” blue played off the idea of the institute as a catalyst for understanding the consumer economy. As the website would live within the broader Bank site, the blues sat besides the greens of the parent identity system without fighting the Bank. We established the family nature by retaining the Bank’s then newly introduced brand typeface, Fira Sans. These, along with a gradient, became the visual identity of the institute for its launch.

I designed the Discussion Paper cover template and trained the CFI staff on the production process, allowing the team to move forward with their own production schedule and freeing me to continue developing templates and other content for launch. This success allowed me to cross-train CFI staff on working paper production, which allowed CFI to assume day-to-day production of CFI-tagged working papers, which received a small logomark or, more affectionately, the CFI “bug”.

In addition to Adobe-created works like discussion and working papers, I developed a series of templates in Microsoft Office, principally Word, empowering CFI staff to create brand-aligned work without requiring support from design teams. This approach became particularly useful during the COVID-19 outbreak when CFI conducted frequent periodic surveys of consumer responses to the pandemic. One of the examples shown here also features a chart my team made upon request.