WEX is a global leader in financial technology solutions. They simplify the complexities of payment systems across fleet cards and payments, corporate payments and health, like gas cards, corporate credit cards and FSA cards.

After years of acquisitions, WEX had dozens of disparate experiences across their web and mobile apps, providing customers who use multiple WEX products, fragmented, confusing customer experiences and causing internal complexity too, as the business struggled to operationalize the ongoing design and development of their software.

During our workshops in Maine, we talked a lot about speed and the need for speed. Eventually we dropped some images and video into our decks from Top Gun, and somehow, over the course of 6 weeks, ended up calling the design system Maverick!

We ran a tight, 6-week engagement, book-ended by workshops, and delivered a sort of design system starter kit—fonts, palette, button and link style, navigation schemas, and key components like calendars/date pickers, forms, search and chat. Additionally, we explored ways for third parties (WEX clients) to brand (or skin) the software in their own corporate brand while maintaining the integrity of the overall app designs.

BTW, the WEX offices are gorgeous—on the water in Maine, and the clients we worked with were some of the nicest and most fun I’ve encountered in many years.

Our kickoff team dinner turned into a stop at another place for drinks, and another stop for dessert and maybe even a third stop, before 15 or so of us walked back to the hotel, like a gang of kids, out trick-or-treating on the streets of Portland, Maine.