FishmanAF
FishmanAF was a relatively new brand in the tech newsletter world when I was brought on to help out with design.
Even so, Adam already had 6,000+ subscribers because of his thorough yet humorous approach to exploring important topics in the growth and product sphere. Further, with the rebrand, Adam was also keen to launch a companion podcast called Startup Dad, focused on the stories of dads in tech. So we created an identity for his podcast too! Adam brought me on to not only develop a fresh brand identity (logo and all) but to also create a design system that was clean, expandable, and easy to use for a non-designer. We focused the FishmanAF brand on conveying Adam’s personality, his propensity for hot takes, and, most of all, his deep understanding of the topics on which he writes.
The Logo
We started with a mood board to capture Adam’s expertise and passion balanced with humor and family.
Which led to our first options: one expressing Adam’s passion for product and growth and the other nodding to the tech field with curves and straight lines.
This brought us closer to our goal, even if it was a little rough around the edges. We also decided that warmth needed to be reserved for something special, like Adam’s “Hot Takes” series.
Finally, we reached our goal by cleaning up some of the more organic edges, introducing intentional curves to guide the eye, and setting our primary colors to something a little cooler.
The Design System
The FishmanAF design system needed to balance being sleek with flexibility in use for a non-designer. So, modeled after the atomic design approach, every effort was made through components, variables, and styles to create a self-serve system in Figma.
A bird’s-eye view of the visual design system.
An example of self-serve options.
Another example of self-serve options.
An implementation with the Startup Dad podcast.
