Putting design back into regulatory technology

Vaiie, then owned by Jersey Post with the Government of Jersey behind it, asked me to brand a suite of regulatory technology products.

Each product needed its own sub-brand, distinct enough to be marketed on its own. Together they still had to read as one company, and the system had to stretch as new products arrived.

Client: Vaiie
Categories: RegTech, Startup
Role: Logo Design, 0 to 1 Design, UX Design, Design Systems, Support
Year: 2022

At a glance

A brand system that ran for five years across the whole product suite
It lasted through a management buyout
It stood apart from a sector of near-identical names and marks

The problem

RegTech looked like RegTech: spinning globes, sci-fi glass panels, and a crowd of similar names. Anything Vaiie launched would land among them.

The sector also treated compliance as a burden for the COO. It can be a competitive advantage instead, giving customers a better experience while keeping the business on top of its regulatory obligations.

On top of that, the brief called for one sub-brand per product. Each needed enough difference to be worth having and enough consistency to still be Vaiie.

Five vaiie product lockups on dark navy: onboard, locate, identify, intelligence and communicate. Each pairs the vaiie starburst with a coloured half-disc — teal, orange, amber, green and pink — carrying its own pattern

The same five vaiie product lockups — onboard, locate, identify, intelligence and communicate — reversed for light backgrounds, with navy wordmarks and the starburst in navy rather than grey

The solution

1. Design against the sector

No globes, no glass panels and very little photography. I used illustration instead, with bold shapes and high-contrast colour, kept simple where competitors went for complexity.

2. A device from the name

"Vaiie" comes from the Jersey French word for "to see". That gave the system its central device: an iris, with the Vaiie V's on one side and a window into the product on the other.

3. One family, many products

The V's stay the same across the suite, and the window changes. Each product gets its own identity without leaving the family.

4. A pattern language

Broken apart and tiled, the windows form a mesh. The mesh runs through the brand and carries the idea of protection, so the logos never have to.

Vaiie's printed report "The Future of Client Onboarding: Analogue, Digitised, Digital" laid out across several copies. The open spread shows an introduction page with a five-part figure on onboarding challenges, facing a pull quote about Jersey and RegTech over a photograph of a lighthouse on a rocky coast

A laptop showing the vaiie onboard ownership structure diagram for Vaiie Investments LLC, next to a phone showing the same onboarding as a mobile task list

Outcomes

A brand system that ran for five years across the whole product suite
It lasted through a management buyout
It stood apart from a sector of near-identical names and marks

The branding gave Vaiie something recognisable in a sector where most brands aren't. It ran for five years across the suite and through a management buyout.

It was retired when the product range was consolidated, because once there were fewer products, separate sub-brands no longer earned their keep.

Jon branded our entire suite of regulatory technology tools that sit at the heart of the business.
He brought a real moment of clarity during a period of complexity - from brand identity and product design through to working prototypes, and from managing agencies to working directly with clients, he made it all look effortless.