Radical bank website redesign

Towerbank, a Panamanian bank, rebranded itself in 2009 as a "radically different" banking experience. The bank embarked on a major overhaul of every aspect of their customer experience, changing everything from their brand to their customer-facing interactions in bank branches.

 

In order to communicate their new brand values, they engaged BootStudio design a new website that would be immediately and viscerally different from those of competing banks. They also wanted the site to be instantly memorable and to give users a reason to "return every day".

 

We started by analyzing the morphology of bank websites. We found that most of them follow very similar structural and navigation patterns. We explored alternatives that would be understandable and usable while avoiding these "cliché" design patterns. 

 

The design we proposed consisted of a single-page jQuery-based site that reveals product content areas when the user clicks on them. Site content — mostly product descriptions — was restructured to be as minimalistic as possible.

 

The site's layout is clean and simple, and features a different background image each day of the year. This allows for easy customization and theming: for example, the backgrounds include appropriate imagery during holidays. This feature adds spunk to the site and gives users a reason to return to the site.

 

The new design has proven very successful: the bank has received many comments from clients who find it innovative and refreshing. In an otherwise stodgy field, it has helped the bank stand out.