A Modern Spin On An Aging Industry
With the rise of Bitcoin and the recent surge of Gamestop shares, a spotlight has been shone on modern-day investments. Lately with the fall of some large hedge funds, its been the little man that has been bringing home the bacon. Thousands of people who are ‘small fry’ in the scope of investments have become millionaires in a relatively small space of time. I hear you saying ‘what the flip has this got to do with design?’ That’s a very good question. Enter stage left: Robinhood.
Robinhood is a US-based app with the sole purpose of making wealth creation, not just for the well-to-do, and make the route there clear and open, for everyone. In 2020 Collins studio was brought on board to reimagine Robinhoods brand strategy, their identity system, communications, tone and voice, product applications, content strategy and messaging. Not much then. But this is where the design comes into play. Combining Robinhood’s vision and Collins’ approach to design they managed to make an industry previously flooded with dull charts and perplexing language into something evocative and enticing.
The problem has always been that investing has been boring and in no way appealing to millennials and the common man. It has been something saved for the educated, something for the red-brick uni grads and people who have never seen the inside of a Lidl. But fortunately, that is all changing in a big way. The ascension of the internet and the free flow of information has given rise to things like reddit’s r/wallstreetbets, where like-minded individuals come to share their due diligence on stocks and perhaps speculate on what is next to ‘go to the moon.’ But that still leaves those with no time to scour forums for tips to get started, its a minefield out there!
Collins approach is just the format for how we envisage good design to operate. They hosted workshops with some of Robinhood’s team to ‘imagine the world fifty years into the future.’ The idea was that if Robinhood’s vision of bringing investing to the masses took off, how would that world look? They visited car companies making self-driving cars, video game and animation studios, they even went to visit Pixar. Anyone or culture that was specialists in building story worlds or defining our destinies.
““Collective participation is a source of power.””
From this, they were able to form a future-focused brand that brings a balance to the powerful performance of the product and the imaginative creation that people want from investing. They aimed to encourage the Robinhood users to visualise more desirable futures and in turn, aid their customers in constructing them.
Even with just a short browse of the Robinhood website you are able to see the modern approach to this industry. It is no way reflective of the usual bore that you might have seen on the likes of Degiro or IG (I urge you to click the links and see the difference). But that is the point. Robinhood is not appealing to those who want to use the aforementioned platforms, they have no desire to. They want to get younger, average everyday people investing; teaching them how to invest along the way.
Their overall UI is smooth and flawless. It is more reminiscent of a Google UI than a boring mainstream banking app. But where I think that the app comes to life is the illustration. Leaning into this idea of a utopian future where we all have the insight and knowledge for wealth creation, the art is both insightful and informative. Who would have thought that you can create illustrations that help with understanding ‘ETFs’ or ‘Fractional Shares’, but they have managed to do just that.
Collins has managed to not only successfully reimagine the overall direction of Robinhood, but they have captured the essence of what investments have been missing for the majority of people; engaging informative benefit. Some would say that investing is supposed to be boring, and there is some truth in that. But in a time where the wealth gap seems to be growing, something has to give. And if Robinhood is a way of levelling the playing field, and it’s using great design to do so, I’m all for it. To the moon.
