Technology has greatly streamlined the mortgage origination process and allowed new entrants to win customers with faster approvals and lower costs. Maxwell is a mortgage fintech solutions platform that helps small and medium-sized mortgage lenders, typically regional and community banks, compete more effectively against national institutions.

Pentagram developed a new brand identity for Maxwell that highlights the platform’s empowering and people-focused approach. The project encompassed brand strategy, positioning and messaging, along with a complete visual system, various applications and the Maxwell website.

With its long track record and comprehensive software suite, Maxwell needed to convey its experience and stature in the sector. Pentagram identified qualities that set Maxwell’s target market apart: these community-based lenders rely on local relationships that national players can’t replicate.

The brand positioning and personality created by Pentagram differentiate Maxwell by balancing its experience and state-of-the-art technology with a deep understanding of what nourishes communities.

The identity system introduces a new wordmark, icon, color palette, and imagery style that help define the brand as both relatable and human, as well as trusted and established. The icon is a series of growing architectural beams that imply an upward trajectory for Maxwell’s clients’ businesses, while at the same time forming the letter M.

Maxwell’s friendly accessibility is evoked in playful animated illustrations by Borja Acosta de Vizcaíno that depict a variety of landscapes typically found across the USA—from urban to coastal, prairie to desert. Details from the drawings are used throughout the website and across other applications.