Finax is Changing: Goodbye Pop-Art, Welcome Finaxies

Do you know what inspired the original Finax logo? Take a guess. Which global tech brand does it remind you of?

If you guessed Facebook, you get 3 points. Our founder Ďuri Hrbatý simply liked the Facebook logo, so he asked the graphic designers working on the Finax website to draw something similar. Why blue? Blue is, after all, the color of the financial sector—or at least that’s what people in finance say. And where did the iconic pop-art illustrations come from? Janči Tonka was searching an image database for something suitable for his blog, he liked one illustration, and soon other authors adopted it as well. That’s how pop-art became the visual style of Finax.

Considering that the whole thing was created on the fly without any sophisticated strategy or “brand positioning” (placing the brand in people’s minds and differentiating it from others), it worked quite well. Especially thanks to co-founder Rado Kasík, who took on the marketing agenda and, despite not being an expert in this sphere, turned out to be a natural talent. The strongest asset of the Finax brand was a consistent use of these elements, overseen by Rado, with communication wrapped under the slogan “intelligent investing.”

So why change it?

As I said, it worked well for years, but it had many objective flaws. For example, the logo lacked a symbol that would also work well when scaled down, like an app icon. The brand’s color shouldn’t resemble others in the segment but rather stand out from them. And the pop-art illustrations from databases—some loved them, others hated them—can be found on crossword puzzles, toilet paper, electronic cigarettes, popcorn, or even on toilet golf. Even if it didn’t seem so, Finax did not have its own unique identity.

The slogan “intelligent investing” worked great in the beginning. It appealed to clients interested in investing, tech innovations, and who could identify themselves as “intelligent investors.” But the clients we now increasingly target, and for whom Finax was primarily created, are people who simply don’t have time for such things. Although they are undoubtedly intelligent, educated, and well-informed people who understand the need to take care of their finances, the world of investment apps is not their world. Whether they are doctors, teachers, craftsmen, gardeners, parents, students, retirees… They don’t see themselves as investors. They have their own interests and priorities, and investing just doesn’t excite them.

A Task for the Best of the Best

Deciding on such a radical step as changing positioning, the logo, and visual identity was not easy. It was preceded by many analyses, surveys, trial and error, and hours of discussions. In the end, we decided not to do such a big thing ourselves on the fly, but to hire the best brand professionals to help us get it done. We were clear about what we wanted. The new brand should represent carefreeness, simplicity, and clarity—qualities that clients appreciate most about Finax. The new visual style should be inventive, iconic, and instantly recognizable. We wanted to keep the drawn form that distinguished us from other financial brands. But we needed to find our own distinctive style.

The task was taken up by the studio Andrej & Andrej, decorated with prestigious international awards for their branding work. The resulting design is the product of their collaboration with successful illustrator Martin Groch.

Money That Grows While You Relax

The Andrejs came up with a simple but brilliant idea. At the center is a coin, a little money guy—a simple circular shape—that multiplies itself, like cells multiply. It does what your money does when you invest it with Finax. And when you stop this multiplication at a certain point, the three circular shapes resemble the letter F.

Even better, from the edges of the coin we create a smile and eyebrows, add a mouth, eyes, and a little body, and the money guy becomes a Finaxie. The Finaxie multiplies further, creating an army of Finaxies. Your own servants “working” to fulfill your dreams while you relax.

Along with the logo and the mascots, Finaxies, there is also a set of emoji pictures that complement text when there is no space for a bigger illustration. Thanks to this, even simple typographic visuals can communicate the brand and carry the desired carefreeness, simplicity, and clarity.

And the cherry on top is the font you are reading right now. We had it customized just for us, and it’s called Finax Sans.

Invest and Relax

We entrusted bringing the Finaxies (and the entire new brand) to life to another prestigious advertising agency, Istropolitana Ogilvy. (Their awards don’t even need to be mentioned—they have so many, that they don’t even fit in one room.) 

Finax is still a small brand, David fighting against the Goliaths of investment services. We don’t have million-dollar marketing budgets, so the goal of our advertising is clear—to make everyone who sees it understand that investing with Finax is relaxing.

P.S. The correct pronunciation is [fɪˈnæks], like “relax”. Think “fit”, not “fine”. Never [ˈfaɪnæks]. 😉