Payji
Payji were an early-stage tech solutions provider focused on developing more purposeful and socially impactful financial instruments and products for the good of society, as opposed to feeding the coffers of the face-less global financial institutions.
Their lead card-payments-platform used a community-wallet model to recycle funds from card transactions through participating traders back into the community, under the steerage of local community leaders.
The Challenge:
They realised though that their logo and identity were stuck in a very Noughties tech look and feel and reflected nothing of their social impact focus, purpose and mission. They also did not have a lot of money, and therefore needed a highly efficient and economical yet passionate team to work with.
We started by identifying the best Brand Strategy for them. By focusing on their lead financial platform solution, we encapsulated the spirit of PAYJI in the line:
People powered payments solutions where every tap puts something back.
This allowed us to reframe our brand identity thinking away from dry techy paypal-type logotypes towards something more human and individually - with an edge
This shift away from payments and transactions towards people and solutions led us to explore a range of tribal ‘marks’ that owed more to the worlds of music labels, clubs, fashion brands and gaming than a card payment app. The primary ‘totem cum kartouche’ logo chosen featured a subtle use of secondary glyphs and emojis to allow people to individualise their PAYJI with an extra personal layer.
Once the masterbrand was defined, we turned our attentions to the product brand and its best in class application. The card payments system was being piloted in Bristol, so we met with the team on the ground who pointed to the need for a simple app button variant – something playful that would sit happily on a phone and website.
Explorations led to us extracting the ‘cat face’ from the tribal Masterbrand logo, shaping into a simple pay button i.d. for use by the Bristol team.
In the process we also demonstrated how the logo could be made dynamic at street level – using street artists, event branding and merchandise to start fixing BristolPayji in the world
