Van Hulzen Asset Management is a financial advisory firm based out of El Dorado Hills, CA. They have a fairly simple premise: Hire the best talent to use the best tools to service the right clients.

We built a series of videos that focus on all three of those elements. Instead of hiring acting talent, we put their staff in front of the camera and had them use their own words to describe what makes them unique. Their message comes off as warm and welcoming, but also professional and steadfast in their approach to financial investing.

The design challenge with financial apps (after security, of course) is the amount of data that needs to be shown. I really tried to pare it down as far as possible while still making it usable. Some of the design solutions were home grown from my own wishlist: Graphs are good. Text is small but readable. Large buttons. Clear what I’m clicking on – this is money we’re talking about. Obvious process and knowing or at least having an expectation of what will happen next is key. And speed. It’s gotta be fast and up-to-the-second and let me know when something changes.

Of course, it’s not possible or even that interesting to show the features that really make an app like this exciting. So, I designed what I found as the beauty of data when organized in a way that makes it usable.