Meet Stitch Head of Brand and Design Greg Wylde

1. Describe your job to a 10-year-old.

Imagine Stitch were a person. My job, primarily, is to make sure everyone Stitch meets understands who we are, what we’re about, and why they’d choose us over anyone else.

2. What excites you most about being a designer for a fintech company?

The design of B2B brands in general tends to be quite bland and lifeless. Influencing the design of a fintech means I have an opportunity to challenge the status quo and, hopefully, breathe a bit of life and inject some energy into the space.

3. Can you describe the importance of sound design principles in fintech? From a design perspective, what sort of nuances are unique to the industry?

It’s important that users feel both safe and that they’re in control and well-informed when using technology to move their money. Good design practices can help do both, while also reducing unnecessary friction in the process. Striking the right balance between those things isn’t easy.

4. With so many fintech companies in existence, what’s your approach to ensuring the Stitch brand stands out from competitors?

The fintech brand landscape is very much a sea of sameness. The point of branding is to differentiate, but it’s important to do so appropriately so that you remain relevant to your intended audience.

From a practical standpoint, this requires an awareness of the market—competitors and prospects—and a deep understanding of Stitch and what we have to offer that is unique. Then, translating that into an expression—a brand world—that resonates with the people we hope to reach.

Metaphors are one of the most powerful tools we have as designers as they connect on an emotional level and can communicate complex and abstract ideas very concisely.

5. How does Stitch work with clients from a design standpoint?

We don’t build a ‘one-size fits all’ product. Where possible, we tailor as much as we can to the specific needs of our clients and their customers.

In a way, we serve as a consultancy for our clients. For some of our larger enterprise clients, we perform reviews and offer advice on their UX flows. We also create prototypes for their payment journeys, among other things.

From a marketing perspective, we provide comms guides and review marketing campaigns to ensure we’re doing all we can to increase awareness and drive the adoption of Stitch as the preferred payment method. 

6. What’s your favourite thing about working at Stitch?

The people. On a professional level, everyone at Stitch is really ambitious which constantly challenges me to improve the quality of work I produce to ensure that it’s effective and complements the high standard of work that the rest of the company is doing.

On a personal level, it’s a really diverse group of people that have a great energy and who I’m happy to spend time with outside of a working environment.

Rapid fire

How do you spend your free time?

• Hanging out with my toddler
• Learning French on Duolingo
• Cooking

What would your superpower be and why?

Time travel or the ability to control time. It goes so fast. We’ve been really intentional about structuring our lives in a way that maximises the time we get to spend with our daughter and experience her development, but it still feels like it’s not enough.

What are you watching and/or reading at the moment?

I just finished watching Succession and now there’s a void. Thankfully the second season of The Bear is out now, too. I’ve been trying to finish a book called User Friendly but, recently, my dog literally ate it.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

If you find something you have a natural inclination to and enjoy – hone it. Become excellent at it.

What’s the coolest project you’ve worked on or designed?

I’m really excited about something we’re currently busy with, which we’ll be releasing very soon.