Building a fintech from the ground up. From product to brand, & everything in between.
We are building the financial operating system for small and medium businesses across
Africa. Our mission is to increase real financial inclusion and help entrepreneurs run and
grow their businesses, by giving them access to affordable and tailored credit, daily-yield savings, insurance, and business intelligence.
Designing for this mission means building trust with users who have been underserved by traditional finance . Clarity, transparency, and dignity have to be baked into every interaction.
I joined Cowdi as the first designer responsible for shaping the product experience, building the brand identity from scratch, and owning marketing and growth design. Every visual decision that leaves the company comes through this seat.
The Logo
The cowdi logo is three overlapping half-circles in forward motion. But it's also the mark of three cowrie shells, one of the earliest forms of currency across the African continent, predating formal financial systems by centuries. Three coins mid-roll. Three main financial products: credit, savings, insurance, moving together.
Each shape is readable on its own and together the half circles suggest something accumulating. Finincial abundance.
I designed it so that its able to hold at app icon scale, print in a single colour on field merch, and animate as a loader inside the product.
One logo mark with lots of use cases.
Design System
Building the foundation before building the product.
With no existing system and an ambitious product roadmap, I built DS-Cowdi with Claude, establishing the token architecture, component library, and documentation that the entire product is built on. Every screen you see here is downstream of this work.
DS-Cowdi in Figma - color tokens, typography scale, and core components. Built to move fast without breaking consistency.
Flex Credit
Designing transparency into a product that most people have learned not to trust.
Working-capital credit in African markets is often opaque . Hidden fees, unclear terms, and no sense of control. We try to change that with Flex Credit. Each disbursement is its own mini-loan: a fixed start date, a chosen tenure, a clear repayment plan, and pricing for only the time you actually use.
My work here covered the end-to-end flow, from application to disbursement to repayment with a focus on reducing anxiety at every step and making the numbers legible to a first-time credit user.
Field Merch
Design that works in the real world.
Cowdi's agents operate in markets and high-footfall commercial areas where standing out is everything. I designed a field merchandise suite built for visibility - bold colours, strong logomark, and patterns legible from a distance. People should stop and ask what cowdi is.
Website
The cowdi.co website needed to communicate trust, clarity, and ambition to two distinct audiences: SME owners evaluating whether to apply, and investors or partners looking to understand the company. I led the design and art direction end-to-end, working within the brand system I'd built.
cowdi.co homepage design balancing product credibility and brand personality.
