For a period of around 8 months in November 2014, TH_NK's design team worked on-site at Atom’s headquarters in Durham. Alongside their design and development teams, our task was to facilitating Atom’s bold brand design across the hugely anticipated IOS & Android mobile app.
Our London team had been working with Atom for about 6 months and had developed Atom’s brand identity. A key element of the new brand was the logo, a striking three dimensional ‘A’ with over 1.4 million different combinations. Using biometric data, profile and account information, new customers would receive an individual and completely unique brand marque.
The marque and colours would flavour the entire interface, meaning each and every customer would have a unique and truly personal banking experience. An experience that was designed to feel human, elegant and anti-establishment.
Instead of relying on customers searching accounts and browsing statements and lists, we designed the app to do the thinking. The live feed to bring you relevant and personalised information about your account, savings and outgoings, in real time. With push notifications and nudges to keep you more in touch with your money with less effort.
As the bank exists primarily in digital, we felt the app should have high production values. Each and every interaction on the experience had to carefully reflect the design principles we’d worked hard to establish. Transitions feel fluid and elegant. As the interface is a three dimensional space, it moves loads observing regular laws of physics. It surely must be the first banking app developed in Unity - software more commonly used to develop gaming applications.
When I joined the project the brand look and feel was established, but there was large sections of the app yet to be thought through. The team split into two or three smaller teams to tackle registration, account opening, and savings. We had access to the BA’s and product specialists so worked openly and collaboratively, with regular stand ups and candid discussions.
It was great to be part of the experience, to be involved in an exciting start-up and to have come away having developed an app unlike any other in the sector. We left Durham whilst the app was undergoing the first of many user testing trials and its since gone public. And yes, I’ve opened an account and have my very own, personalised Atom app.
I undertook this project with the amazing team at EPAM. If you’d like to know more about this project or enquire about working with EPAM, please get in touch.