The EQ Bank branding refresh takes a bold step away from traditional banking and sets the bank apart as a challenger brand. The introduction of vibrant indigo and warm cream to the colour palette spoke to the accessibility challenges that we had faced with having yellow as our primary colour. It also speaks to loyalty and warmth to welcome potential customers with a sense of ease.

We also adopted illustrative simplified UI 
as a key storytelling tool. Mobile devices 
are the number one way our customers experience the brand, through our digital banking platform. The simplified UI uses 
line art that lets us tell the story of the experience without getting mired in the precise details, like device types or exact interfaces. 

Our photography was saturated with overly enthusiastic pictures of mobile-obsessed super-stocky people. Like much of the financial brand space, as long as the people were happy (even too happy) they would do.  
 
We wanted to stand out. 
 
Our new approach is to capture moments of drive, ambition and growth. We knew it would be unsustainable to abandon stock photography, so in addition to aligning on an ethos of expression for our models, we also created custom presets in Lightroom to make sure the photos feel like they are of a piece. In a addition we gently blur our backgrounds to put the model into sharp focus, as the hero of each photo. 

Each area of our branding was selected through strategic planning and implementing a thoughtful, accessible perspective.