With quick setup, low minimums, collections, recurring buys, and over a dozen crypto assets available, Circle Invest is the best way to get started in crypto.
But buying coins is just the beginning. We recently launched a new section of the app called "Explore," which features approachable, informative content to help you develop your understanding of the crypto world. Bone up on dollar cost averaging, explore blockchain basics, and dive deep into the tokenization of everything.
We're treating Explore like an educational publication—more magazine, less textbook. To strike the right tone, I've created unique illustrations for each post. And in the spirit of editorial illustration, I was free to deviate from the core Circle brand aesthetic. It's been a blast experimenting in new forms and textures.
To see the illustrations in context, be sure to download Circle Invest on iOS or Android!
More Illustration Projects
In January 2021, USAA was nearing completion on a new design system and a refresh of their brand voice. They needed help defining how illustration at USAA should look, feel, and function. I crafted an illustration style and system that integrates directly into Reveille and reflects the modernized brand, then trained and led a team of illustrators to expand the library into the future.
In late 2019 and early 2020, Circle sunset, sold, or spun out every one of its consumer products, and dedicated itself to building B2B USDC services. Naturally, it was time for a rebrand! Though I had left the company months before, my friend and former colleague Kristine asked me to once again define the company’s illustrative brand—this time as a freelancer.
When I joined Circle as a product designer, I was hired, in part, for my background in illustration. But that “nice to have” soon became my central focus. I’ve spent years defining and evolving the Circle illustrative brand, cementing its place in our products, website, marketing campaigns, and more.
How to Draw a Startup is a new personal project of mine, a podcast miniseries about the evolving role of illustration in the tech industry. I spoke with over a dozen illustrators, designers, art directors, educators, and more to understand why illustration is used, how illustrated brands are crafted, and where illustrators fit in creative teams.
Circle was founded on the belief that blockchain technology could usher in a more open and inclusive global economy. But such a future can’t be built within the walls of a private company. It requires open standards and partnerships. That’s why, in 2017, Circle announced CENTRE, a “foundation, open source project, protocol, and network aimed at breaking down the barriers which cost us money and time to connect to each other financially.”
With the limitations of a small design team, early versions of Circle Pay primarily relied upon off-the-shelf icon sets. But after I joined and began creating illustrations for product and brand, I soon set my sights on icons. I made a few as needed, but replacing the old set entirely wasn't worth the design and development commitment. But with Circle Invest, I was there from the beginning.
As a financial tech startup, Circle’s apps have always needed to represent currency. Circle Pay got its start as a Bitcoin wallet, and within a couple years added US Dollars, British Pounds, and Euros. Custom icons were made for these four currencies, showing up throughout the app and its marketing.
But Circle Invest called for even more. The app offers _thirteen_ different crypto assets. Presenting these disparate crypto projects in a coherent and consistent way would advance Invest's mission to make crypto more approachable. I set out to create a unified set of crypto icons. Easier said than done…
In early 2019, Circle’s chief evangelist Anders Brownworth and I collaborated on an animated educational video. The project's goal was to demonstrate how USD Coin could facilitate fast, low-cost international transfers between exchanges.
Circle Invest isn’t just the best way to buy crypto, it’s the best way to learn about it. The "Explore" section of our app features approachable, informative content to help you develop your understanding of the world of blockchain. For each article, I’ve created a unique editorial illustration.
In addition to my usual product design and illustration duties at Circle, I have a fun little side project: creating custom wallpapers for my colleagues' phones. Each illustration features a few of our unofficial mascots, a crew of adorable crustaceans. What started as a monthly project has since become quarterly, as I kept getting more and more ambitious. So much for a "side project!"
Circle's Boston team moved into a new office in the summer of 2017. I was excited to produce a mural for our cafe, bringing the spirit of Circle Pay to the central point of our office.
For more than 80 years, Titleist has made “the #1 ball in golf.” The storied company came to Fresh Tilled Soil with a website that had grown too cumbersome; it was inflexible, mobile unfriendly, and in need of a visual and UX overhaul. Our team set out to craft a modern, fully responsive site that captured the brand’s timeless classicism. I worked alongside some of Fresh Tilled Soil's most senior creative talent, and contributed to the project's visual design, conceptual development, wireframing, prototyping, icon design, and more.
Rethink Robotics makes extraordinary robots for manufacturing and scientific research. At the company’s core is a profound vision of the relationship between humans and robots, and no wonder—co-founder Rodney Brooks is a robotics pioneer. That vision, however, was lost in its website, buried by a complex information architecture and unfocused design. The site Fresh Tilled Soil crafted better illustrates Rethink’s compelling narrative and serves as a flexible platform for their future growth.
The team at MoveableCode saw an opportunity: technology could enable new directions in storytelling and gaming, using the virtual to connect us with our physical world like never before. The result was Incantor, an innovative mobile game that sought to make magic real. Along with my colleagues at Fresh Tilled Soil, I helped to refine and design the game, from its mechanics and mythology to its unique visual language.
Brooke & Michael Webb built itsgr82bme.com (“it’s great to be me”) to be the central home for family-friendly activities, connecting families and small businesses across the country. They came to me to enhance their investor pitch deck with illustrations, helping to visualize their story and take itsgr82bme to a brighter future.
IdeaPaint transforms nearly any surface into a dry erase whiteboard. Naturally, every surface at the company's Boston headquarters is painted with it, creating an office-sized canvas. Every other month, IdeaPaint invites a local artist to create an art installation in their unique space, covering hundreds of square feet with just dry erase markers. I love a good challenge, and couldn't turn down an invitation to be their December 2014 Studio Session artist.
On October 1, 2013, Fresh Tilled Soil held its first annual UX Fest. The event brought together Boston's UX community to explore how every aspect of a business–from design and technology to marketing and strategy–contributes to the user experience. The event was a success, and a year later, we held an encore. I’m proud to have helped conceive of and organize these events, contributed to the creative collateral, and led sessions.
After nearly ten years of working in the fast paced, ephemeral realm of online experiences, we at Fresh Tilled Soil decided to stop, think, and get some ink on our hands. The result was Fold, the company's first-ever print publication. In addition to design and editorial contributions, I illustrated nine portraits for a feature story on leadership in the digital design industry.
After several years of stewarding the To Boldly Fold brand and visual identity, I was thrilled to contribute to the design of our leather-bound books for the first time. The results were the Manifesto Series and Travel Series, two collections of handsome sketchbooks and journals.
To Boldly Fold isn't all leather sketchbooks and journals. Our line of hand-lettered goody bags bring a bit of whimsy and artistry to an everyday experience.