15 Jul 2026

Stephane Perez spent serious time making a logo feel wrong on purpose. Grimy, insectoid, deliberately unsettling. The design communicates threat before anyone reads a word. That is intentional semiotics doing heavy lifting.

Most fintech and consumer credit brands do the opposite. They spend considerable budget making everything feel clean, trustworthy, frictionless. Soft blues, rounded fonts, reassuring iconography. The visual language screams 'we are safe and modern and not a loan shark.' Which is fine, until every brand in the sector looks identical and consumers stop reading the signals at all.

The more interesting question for technology and product leaders is this: when did your brand last communicate anything distinctive at the visual layer?

Perez talks about the logo needing to reference Annihilus, the specific villain, not just 'space invasion' generically. That specificity is the work. In financial services we tend to abstract upward, towards generic safety cues, rather than downward towards something specific and memorable.

Two things are worth taking from his process:

• He built a custom font rather than adapting an existing one, because nothing off the shelf carried the right connotations
• The 'dirty' quality was a feature, not a flaw, because it told the story of the product

Consumer credit is a product category with real emotional texture. Borrowing money means something to people. The brands that acknowledge that complexity, rather than papering over it with pastel gradients, tend to build stronger recognition over time.

The FCA's consumer duty push towards genuine clarity and fair treatment is actually an opportunity here. Brands that communicate honestly about what they are, including the parts that require careful thought from consumers, will differentiate more effectively than those still chasing the aesthetic of a wellness app.

Perez made something that looks like the thing it represents. When did your brand last manage that?