Everstar Capital

The website had gone through two major iterations:

1. Initially, we customized a high-quality template in an attempt to save development time. After presenting the design to a test user base, the feedback was that even though the polished design and the animated interface were cutting edge, the experience was was confusing and lacked navigational clarity
2. The UI was reimagined from scratch, and we built a truly custom design which maintained a familiar web experience that didn't necessitate a learning curve, resulting in bounce rates that were reduced by 200%

• Digital Strategy
• Competitive Analysis
• Design Direction (Branding / UX & UI Design)
• Front-end Development
• UX Writing / Copywriting
• Marketing Systems Design

Phase 1:  Stakeholder Interviews, Research & Brand Identity Design

Before all else, we wanted to identify the why behind this brand.

The company's mission is to bring exciting financial growth opportunities to investors through real estate investments.

Further, it is their goal to inform and educate the community and their potential investors about the importance of diversifying financial portfolios.

In addition to producing attractive, risk-adjusted returns for their investors, the company strives to enhance the life of every tenant, team member, and individual that comes in contact with their business.

When considering the name for the company, we wanted the name to be strong, memorable, and available as a .com domain.

After a few rounds of iteration, Everstar Capital was formed and its style guide was designed.

Color Palette

Being in the finance and investment sectors, we wanted to elicit a sense of maturity and trust with our color scheme.

Using off-black and off-white dark and light colors allows us to create a unique concept while maintaining a sense of comfort with our users

Researching Logo Designs

Part of my logo design process is looking at other logo concepts—together with my clients—so we can get aligned on an idea.

We all liked the idea of playing with a "star" shape within the main logo icon:

Dribbble.com is one of my favorite resources for gathering design ideas

Font Exploration

We looked for fonts that we would use for headings, body copy, as well as the logo type. Google Fonts is an excellent resource for finding fonts and font pairings.

Using a serif font evokes a feeling of tradition, and thus, trust—an essential component to raising capital. We explored a wide variety of fonts, weights, and styles.

The different fonts that we considered for the logo type

We landed on a font combination consisting of the Noto Sans Bold serif for the headings, with the Monda Regular sans-serif for the body copy.

Headings: Noto Sans Bold

Body Copy: Monda Regular

The two fonts coming together to create the logotype

Logo Icon Concept

I define good design as "using the least amount of resources, while creating the most impact."

This concept is deeply ingrained in my process and for the Everstar Capital brand identity design, I closely studied the logo type to look for features that we could make a logo icon out of.

I found an ascender of the "t" shape to have an angle of a four-pointed star

Based on our logo inspiration research, we combined the newly created icon with the logo type to create the final logo design

Final Logo Design

Below is the finalized logo mark.

White logo on dark background. Other color variants of the logo were also created

Phase 2: UX Research, Wireframing, & Website Design

After coming up with the name and brand identity, I began our competitor analysis to gather ideas for the most optimal investor onboarding experience.

We wanted to create an experience that allowed potential new investors to get to know the company, its founders, as well as play with an investment calculator to get an idea of the possible returns their investment could generate.

Based on the results from our competitive analysis, we created wireframes with the goal to create the smoothest onboarding experience for new investors.

We created a Home page, Portfolio page, About page, How it Works page, the Education page, Contact page, New Investor Onboarding experience, as well as an Investment Calculator.

Home Page

Starting with the wireframes allows us to go through a UX writing exercise, the results of which are used to create production-level designs. Content always comes first before design.

Going from the UX design of the Home page to a live version of the page, on desktop and mobile

About Page

Through my creative direction, the team had hired a local photographer to take photos of them "in action."

Taking the About Page UX design to a live version of the site

investment Calculator

The investment calculator was designed to be a core function of the web experience, allowing potential investors to get an idea of the possible returns their investments can yield when invested in multi-family real estate through Everstar Capital.

How it works:

1. Select Your Initial Investment: Investors are able select their initial contribution into a mock real estate investment—$50K, $100K, $250K, $500K, and $1MM
2. Set Your Risk Tolerance: Next, select your risk tolerance from a range of most common real estate investment return multiples—1.5x, 1.75x, 2x, and 2.5x—ranked from conservative to optimistic.
3. Receive Potential Return Amount: Based on previous inputs, the investor receives their potential capital return, along with a breakdown of how this amount would be distributed—how much quarterly, and how much from a capital event, such as from a refinance or sale of the property.

Wireframes of the Investment calculator next to the finished product

Investment Calculator Walkthrough

We wanted to give investors a clear picture for the journey their capital would take once committed into a multi-family real estate investment.

Phase 3: Marketing Automation & Assets Design

As a new firm, relationship building with real estate brokers is paramount to asset lead flow, so we set out to create a downloadable presentation (using the Everstar Capital style guide) that leadership could share in an email.

Additionally, each page in the website promoted a single call-to-action to "Get Started". This pulled up a full-screen form experience that allows Everstar to get to know the investor's experience, preferences, as well as their contact information.