Solum Education

Project Context

Grupo Solum, a alternative investments holding company, launched Solum.ed as a new educational initiative to democratize financial knowledge in Brazil. The project had one core mission: demystify finance and investments for Brazilians.

We aimed to transform complex concepts into clear, engaging content, empowering people to confidently navigate their financial journeys.

The Challenge

Create a brand and platform that balanced Grupo Solum’s established reputation with a more approachable educational tone, delivered complex financial concepts in an engaging, easy-to-understand format, and appealed to a diverse audience ranging from beginners to advanced learners.

My Role

As the UX/UI Designer, I was responsible for:

• Developing the brand identity and visual language for the platform
• Designing an intuitive user interface and experience for the online learning environment
• Creating a scalable design system for course materials and marketing content

The Process

Discovery Phase

I started by thoroughly analyzing the extensive research material provided by Grupo Solum about their customers. They had conducted comprehensive research on user profiles, habits and preferences. This data formed the foundation for our design decisions.

Brand Development

The challenge was to create a brand that honored Grupo Solum’s established image while introducing a fresh educational focus. Solum.ed needed to embody three key elements:

1. The sobriety of Grupo Solum’s brand
2. A sense of lightness to represent the goal of bringing knowledge to Brazilians
3. A technological aspect to reflect the online nature of the courses

Logo Design

Drawing inspiration from Grupo Solum’s leaf motif, I created several logo concepts balancing simplicity, modernity and elegance. After studying various forms, I obtained 4 final options. The final logo choice was made through a preference survey among potential users of the educational platform.

Color Palette

The colors were chosen from variants of those originated from the Solum Group, using the research of analogous variants, monochromatic and shades, giving rise to 3 main strands: Blue Dark, Light Gray, Blue Monday and Aqua, the shades of nuances and gradients of these were also used.

The final definitions of the palette were taken by the study of the colors of the blue tone, referring to the standard of the education area and reflecting the highlight of modernity.

Typography

To maintain consistency with existing materials, “Gotham” was chosen as the primary font, being the font used in the company’s first course. For the secondary font, I chose “Montserrat” for being a Google font family, having high readability performance, and having similar weights to the primary font.

Social Media and Video Content Support

To support the launch and ongoing promotion of Solum.ed, I created design assets for social media and video content. These designs aimed to capture attention and convey the approachable nature of the courses.

Outcome and Learnings

The launch of Solum.ed was a game-changer for Grupo Solum’s mission to democratize financial education in Brazil. We hit some major milestones:

• Significantly expanded Grupo Solum’s reach, tapping into a broader audience hungry for accessible financial knowledge
• Users consistently praised the platform’s intuitive design and engaging content presentation, validating our user-centric approach
• Saw a notable bump in course completion rates compared to industry averages, proving that good design can boost learning outcomes

Key Learnings

This project was a masterclass in educational design, pushing me to level up in several areas:

• Visualizing the complex: Translating financial jargon into visually digestible content for a diverse audience was a challenge that sharpened my information design skills.

• Scalability is king: Developing a robust design system that supported rapid content creation was key. It allowed the educational team to churn out new courses without sacrificing visual consistency or quality.

• User research is gold: The comprehensive data provided by Grupo Solum was invaluable in shaping our design decisions and ensuring we hit the mark with our target audience.

• Design as a barrier-breaker: Thoughtful UX/UI choices played a huge role in demystifying finance for users who might have previously felt intimidated by the subject.

This project showcased my ability to translate complex business goals and diverse user needs into effective, user-centered designs. It reinforced my skills in creating intuitive educational interfaces and aligning every design choice with both business objectives and social impact goals.