NerdWallet: Making finance feel human

Building a scalable illustration system that brings clarity to finance

Project Type

Brand illustration library

Timeline

3 months

Industry

Fintech

Challenge

NerdWallet, a leading fintech company, has a clear mission: to make finance approachable and empower people to make smart decisions. While their creative team is known for high-quality work, growing demands created a bottleneck. They needed a partner to help scale production and provide tools that enabled internal teams to self-serve efficiently.

The SketchDeck team set out to build an illustration library that delivered assets quickly while telling compelling stories. Each piece needed to reflect diverse audiences and bring warmth and personality to financial guidance, transforming intimidating topics into visuals people could connect with.

Solution

Working as an extension of NerdWallet’s in-house team, we created a scalable illustration system to make complex financial topics feel clear, approachable, and distinctly on-brand. Our dedicated creative team seamlessly integrated with their existing workflow, with a focus on:

Approachable design using quirky characters, playful details, and light humor
Informative storytelling with whimsical touches that support clear messages
Brand integration through palette, typography, and pops of color for warmth
Narrative-driven design that brings clarity and celebrates empowerment
Consistent style with enough variation to keep each piece unique

Outcome

In just three months, we helped NerdWallet scale its visual storytelling, delivering:

35+ projects spanning illustrations, animations, and editorial designs
100+ refreshed assets for a self-serve library, saving the creative team over 200 design hours each month
Elevated brand distinction in the fintech space by humanizing financial advice through illustrations that feel warm, approachable, and trustworthy

By building a scalable illustration system, we enabled faster asset delivery, reinforced NerdWallet’s role as a trusted financial guide, and freed their creative team to focus on high-impact projects.