Alfa.
Refreshing a digital experience to champion an ESG-led future.
Project role
Design Lead
Branding
UI/UX
Agency
Brand42
Year
2016, 2022
Previous work
In 2016, we completed the total rebrand of Alfa, formerly CHP Consulting. During this process, we sought to bring clarity to the asset finance industry.
We achieved this by successfully redefining their brand identity as well as producing an entirely redesigned website. The concept was to clarify who Alfa are and what they do by defining three areas, ‘company’, ‘product’ and ‘careers’.
Six years on, a new challenge awaited.
In 2022, it was time to refresh things again for Alfa. The company had evolved and their revised strategy set a new challenge for their brand and its digital future. Their aim was to refresh their website with a strong representation of ESG principles that better reflects their organisational diversity.
The Process
Getting Started
The first step was to truly understand Alfa’s new strategy. So, once again, we immersed ourselves with the Alfa brand and in particular, the team. We ran workshops, developed personas, ran card sorting exercises, interviews and collaborated with internal design and UX members, all both virtually and in the studio.
This close relationship with Alfa allowed us to determine a rough IA for the website, begin a wireframe prototype and develop some refreshed directions for the look and feel.
A creative challenge
A key challenge for this project was the look and feel. Having worked on the branding and website in 2016 and knowing that the brand had evolved since our last involvement, the challenge was to pull everything back together.
After experimenting with evolutionary and revolutionary creative directions we settled on striking a balance somewhere in between that acts as a gentler transition between sections, incorporating the investors microsite and adopting a more contemporary typeface and expanded colour palette.
Showcasing ESG and diversity throughout the experience
A clear focal point of the brief was to show a strong representation of ESG principles that better reflects Alfa’s organisational diversity. This stretched across many areas of the website, from the warmth and inclusivity of the careers pages to the credentials on the investor section. We learnt from our discovery phase that ‘Sustainability’ would need a distinct home within the website structure to provide an easily found platform to showcase Alfa’s efforts in this sector.
Finally, we took care to ensure we were delivering a AA WCAG standard accessibility score across colour contrast, aria labels, alt text and keyboard usability.
Impactful product pages for leading software.
We wanted to introduce product pages that were exciting and visually pleasing. It was important to portray the people at the heart of the product at the forefront - whilst bringing the software’s capabilities to life through animated illustration.
Empowering Alfa’s news and insights
We transformed News and Insights into a central hub of written material, adopting a firmer position on the platform to enhance Alfa’s dynamic portfolio of content.
