Inspiration to Execution: A Day in the Life of Our Design Team

Nymbus Labs
5 min readJul 29, 2024

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The Creative Team is pivotal in helping Nymbus and our clients navigate a sea of sameness by transforming concepts into captivating experiences. Our work is central to distinguishing ourselves and our clients in a crowded marketplace. To give you a glimpse into our world, let’s explore the design journey from inception to implementation.

The Design Journey: From Concept to Completion

Every design journey starts with a good story. In the first stage, we dive deep to understand the problem we’re solving. We gather intel through kick-off meetings, market research, and competitor analysis. This paints a clear picture of the user and the needs we’re addressing. Next, we unleash creativity! Brainstorming sessions spark a wide range of ideas. Mood boards come alive, capturing the desired look and feel. These ideas are then visualized through concept sketches or wireframes, from possibilities to prototypes. We refine the most promising concepts with detailed designs. Low-fidelity prototypes (think notebook sketches) leading to high-fidelity mockups allow us to test functionality and aesthetics. Feedback from the team, clients, and stakeholders becomes our compass, guiding us through an iterative design loop. The final design emerges, polished and ready. We ensure it meets all specifications and compliance requirements before creating detailed technical specs. It’s like a blueprint for the development team. Launch day arrives. Whether physical production or digital implementation, we collaborate closely with partners to bring the design to life. Quality assurance testing guarantees a smooth user experience. But the story doesn’t end there. We gather feedback post-launch and analyze performance against initial goals. This data fuels continuous improvement — the final stage in every design journey.

The Power of Collaboration

Collaboration is the golden thread throughout this process. We work closely with team members, clients, and stakeholders to ensure the design achieves its intended goals and delights users. It’s a dynamic and rewarding adventure!

Understanding and Incorporating Client Vision

Understanding a client’s vision is critical. Early on, we dig deep to uncover their story, goals, and what truly excites them. These become our guiding lights throughout the design process. It’s a constant conversation, not a monologue. We review progress at every stage, ensuring we’re on the same page. By the end, the design isn’t just ours — it’s a culmination of their vision and our expertise, a truly collaborative work.

A Memorable Collaboration: Locality Bank

Locality Bank is a project that truly defines the power of collaboration. We kicked off the project with an energetic start because they have a fantastic story — a trio of passionate founders aiming to redefine community banking in the digital age. They were taking on the historic task of chartering a denovo bank in the South Florida area from scratch, a feat that hadn’t been achieved in over a decade. We drew inspiration from their dedication to local connections, digital innovation, and the local culture of South Florida itself. The turning point came during the logo design stage. We presented several logo concepts, but nothing quite hit the mark. Disappointment was starting to fill the room. Then, we unveiled our final design, a symbol that subtly echoed their founding story and what they were trying to achieve. As we explained the concept, the energy shifted — a spark of recognition ignited in their reactions. The logo resonated with their vision, and the collaboration truly clicked.

Sources of Inspiration

Our team finds inspiration in unexpected places. It could be a groundbreaking experience in a tangential industry, a captivating art installation, or even a new musical performance or album. Drawing inspiration from these diverse sources, we bridge the gap between the established and the innovative in the financial world. Imagine a sleek, user-friendly banking app inspired by the intuitive design of a fitness tracker. Or a visually stunning financial dashboard influenced by the bold colors and geometric shapes of modern art. By looking outside the box, we bring fresh perspectives to financial design, making it more engaging and user-friendly.

Overcoming Creative Blocks

A creative block can be an opportunistic detour, not a dead end. In a fast-paced environment like ours, there’s always another project to tackle. If we hit a wall, we like to switch gears completely. Maybe we’ll dive into a different task or step away altogether. A walk in nature, a quick workout — even a shower! Sometimes, all it takes is a change of scenery to unlock a fresh perspective. By letting our minds rest, the block often unravels on its own, and we return with renewed focus and a surge of new ideas.

Staying Updated with Design Trends

There are a few online design communities we like to participate in. Dribbble is one in particular where Nymbus showcases work of our own. Aside from that, many of us come from backgrounds in video game design and are passionate about user interfaces. While we may not have as much time for gaming these days, we find ourselves constantly dissecting user interfaces in any app we interact with. It’s a compulsive reflex — identifying patterns, analyzing navigation, and appreciating the visual hierarchy. These discoveries become building blocks for our own designs, ensuring they’re not just trendy but also intuitive and user-friendly.

What Sets Nymbus Apart

At Nymbus, we embrace new approaches and new ideas. It’s something that is ingrained in our DNA. How we show up in our creative reflects our different approaches in nearly all aspects of how we operate, from our remote-first, flexible work culture to where and how we look to innovate in our technology and industry, all the way through to the accountable partnerships we forge with our clients. Our commitment is to deliver transparency, continuous support, access, and superior value, ensuring that every aspect of Nymbus is about your institution’s success. By highlighting our design and creative team’s process, we hope to give you a glimpse into the passion and dedication that drives our work. We believe that by understanding the journey from inspiration to execution, you can appreciate the craftsmanship that goes into every project we undertake.

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Nymbus Labs

helps institutions grow and attract new market segments with banking technology, strategic marketing and user-experience expertise.