ANNA Money's brand asks what a good-natured AI assistant looks like

ANNA — Absolutely No-Nonsense Admin — combines a current account, cards and an AI-plus-human assistant that predicts cashflow and chases invoices. The identity had to move away from the cold, technical visual and verbal standards of finance and technology.

NB Studio worked with designer Michael Wolff and illustrator Alice Bowsher on a hand-drawn identity in an intentionally warm terracotta hue, with Bowsher's clock-watching dinosaur and sunbathing bear giving personality to the dull world of financial admin.

Selected in Creative Review's The Annual 2019 in the Design – Brand Identity category. No commercial figures were published with the identity.

ANNA is an app and AI assistant that helps small businesses and freelancers manage their finances — a subscription service combining a current account, a physical debit card and a virtual card, with AI plus a human support team that tracks expenses, predicts cashflow and chases invoices.

When NB Studio created the identity, the team framed the brief as a question: what does a good-natured AI assistant look like? Working with creative consultant Michael Wolff and illustrator Alice Bowsher, the studio answered with a playful, hand-drawn identity in an intentionally warm terracotta hue, stating it wanted to 'inject warmth and charm to move away from the cold, technical visual and verbal standards of finance and technology'.

Bowsher's illustrations — a clock-watching dinosaur and a sunbathing bear — give character to the unglamorous world of financial admin. The work was selected in Creative Review's The Annual 2019, its award scheme for the best in commercial creativity, in the Design – Brand Identity category.

The organising question — a good-natured AI — turns brand design into character design, which suits a product that talks to you.

Hand-drawn illustration is a real differentiator in fintech, where most competitors signal cold precision.

Warm terracotta carries the same argument at colour level, working before any words are read.

Personality is a positioning tool: if your product is an assistant, the brand can show its temperament rather than its category.

The identity was selected in Creative Review's The Annual 2019. No commercial performance figures were published alongside the work.