ChimeCopied

Chime is a US mobile banking company. Creative Bloq reported that its earlier identity spoke in a more juvenile voice, and the brand had to evolve with its customers' financial lives while appealing to new audiences: maturing without losing its soul, as the design team put it.

According to the agency's executive creative director, the brief was to show the ease and simplicity of banking with Chime and to reflect the community at the heart of its success. It centres on the company's two key products, the card and the app, positioned as 'windows of forward progress'. The concept is a 'portal to progress': a green portal shape, echoing card and phone, represents how Chime's products work together to simplify everyday progress, and illustrated vignettes interact with it to show the community in everyday situations, treating customers as real people, not caricatures.

The toolkit pairs typography meant to exude trust and clarity with expressive lettering, iconography woven into messaging, motion that emphasises progress, and illustration that celebrates diversity. Letters can be unlocked and replaced with pictograms or hand-script alternates, which the agency said kept the brand true to its friendlier, non-corporate origins. The existing green was strengthened for contrast and legibility, a secondary palette adds a sense of freedom and aspiration, and illustration shifted towards a more realistic style to be more relatable and inclusive. Custom type comprises Chime Serif and Chime Saans, a modified Saans with accessible alternatives.

Creative Bloq called it a triumphant evolution that disrupts corporate conformity in a sector that avoids colouring outside the lines.

The portal is a sensible organising idea, though calling a rounded rectangle a portal does a lot of work. The swap-in pictograms are the real personality, and the right instinct: grow up in the type, stay playful in the details.