The epic story of a design system birth: ❄️ Fractal
In a world where finance often dons a serious and stoic demeanor, one individual dared to redefine the game. Meet Yoann Lopez, a spirited French entrepreneur who, in 2020, decided to flip the script on personal finance. What started as a side project blossomed into Snowball, a playful newsletter that’s all about making personal finance fun, accessible, and empowering.
Introducing Snowie: The Game-Changer
When Yoann launched Snowball, he had a vision that went far beyond spreadsheets and numbers. He wanted to show the world that personal finance isn’t just for the experts — it’s for everyone.
Enter Snowie, the adorable snowball mascot who turned finance education into a joyful experience. With Snowie by its side, Snowball was set to melt away the frosty barriers that had long surrounded personal finance.
The Snowball Aesthetic: Neo-Brutalism with a Twist
In the pursuit of a brand that echoed Snowball’s essence, Yoann teamed up with Mozza, a full stack product studio, late in 2022. Part of their mission was to create a visual identity that would captures the heart of Snowball’s journey.
Snowie and Yoann’s personality were the anchors, and they set their sights on an unconventional choice — neo-brutalism.
Neo-Brutalism in Fintech sets a surprisingly refreshing approach redefining how we experience financial technology. It infuses fintech branding with a bold, memorable UI DNA.
It’s not just a look; it’s an experience that bridges the gap between the past and the future. The aesthetic, reminiscent of retro-gaming and the 90s, adds an approachable charm that resonates particularly with Snowball’s main audience.
But Neo-Brutalism isn’t just about aesthetics. It’s a statement — a way to challenge the status quo.
By contrasting classic finance with a touch of unapologetic boldness, it makes fintech services feel more friendly and accessible. It also makes Snowball identity strongly memorable. And the color contrast it brings? That’s a game-changer for interface accessibility!
A Community Grows, Dreams Take Flight
Fast forward to 2023, and Snowball isn’t just a newsletter anymore. It is now a thriving community of over 50,000 readers, premium subscribers, and engaged individuals seeking financial empowerment. The success wasn’t just in the numbers; it was in the stories of people taking charge of their finances, armed with newfound knowledge and a dash of Snowie’s charm.
But Snowball’s evolution was just beginning. The journey from newsletter to full-blown Finance Media was underway. Crowdfunding from the community fueled their growth, partnerships expanded their reach, new content creators joined the adventure and the horizon saw the promise of a FinTech platform and personal financial coaching. To bring this vision to life, Yoann assembled a team of future-driven talents.
Scaling Snowball Brand into an Entire System
With Snowball now armed with a powerful purpose, a mascot, a brand direction, and a super ambitious product vision, a new challenge emerged — scaling this identity into a comprehensive system that could expand across all facets of the company, through various platforms, devices and usages. The task was monumental: how to infuse Snowball’s essence into every piece of content, product, and service?
This is when Clément and myself joined the Snowball adventure early in May 2023 as lead dev front and principal designer.
Our mission was twofold: contribute to product creation and steer the company towards growth. As we set out to make this vision a reality, we could’ve easily jumped into building the product right away, aiming for a quick delivery. But we saw the potential pitfall of accumulating massive front-end debt from day one, which, truth be told, would have slammed the brakes on us down the road rather than speeding us up.
So, we rallied Yoann and the rest of the team around a different idea — set a design system first, our snowplow. Yes, it meant taking a few weeks to clear the path, but we knew this investment would be our snowball’s push down the hill. By investing time in creating the design system upfront, we’d be rolling downhill with unstoppable momentum when it came to building the product.
And thus began the creation of Fractal, our design system
- Fractal guidelines are based on an open source Figma file
- A full documentation website is built using Storybook
- The design tokens are derived using Style Dictionary (from Amazon).
- The Fractal web UI components library is built in TypeScript for React applications and Panda CSS is used to style all the components according to the design tokens.
- Also, most of the components are based on Radix-UI.
Our approach is atomic, just like a snowball gaining size and speed, our design system is proving to be a powerful force, beginning with the tiniest and simplest elements and expanding into a scalable system.
Also, from day one, Clément and I are guided by a resolute conviction — to align seamlessly with Snowball’s values of transparency, inclusion and accessibility Fractal had to be Open Source.
In a world of rigid structures, Fractal is a breath of fresh air, breaking free from the expected, inviting us to embrace a new way of thinking about financial technology.
Embracing the Journey Ahead
Today, our Fractal serves as the dynamic blueprint for an exciting array of Snowball future user experiences that promise to reshape the way we engage with finance:
- It’s at the heart of crafting a legal-compliant onboarding journey, set to welcome users into our forthcoming financial coaching service.
- Additionally, it’s the guiding light behind a client space, meticulously designed to make financial coaching more accessible and empower our subscribers on their personal finance journeys.
- Our dedicated back office for future finance coaches is also brought to life through this system.
And yet, this is just the beginning of our journey as a full-fledged Media platform is on the horizon, poised to expand our universe even further.
From a playful newsletter to a revolutionary force in personal finance education, Snowball’s story is one of passion, community, and the power of making finance engaging.
So, welcome to the world of Snowball, where finance and fun unite, where personal empowerment is a true goal. Stay tuned, the adventure is just getting started, and we can’t wait to bring you along for the ride.
Follow us as we explore a simpler, bolder, and more delightful side of fintech with Fractal.
