Overview
Findsly is a marketplace connecting artisans (photographers, DJs, makeup artists, plumbers, electricians) with customers across Nigeria. The brand had to do two jobs at once inside one visual system: make professionals look credible enough to hire, and make customers feel safe enough to book. It also had to hold up across very different contexts, everything from a phone screen to a billboard 50 meters off the road.
Brand identity for a Nigerian artisan marketplace connecting photographers, DJs, makeup artists, and tradespeople with customers, built to work on billboards and phone screens with equal confidence.
The Challenge
Interviews with 20 artisans and 30 potential customers surfaced a clean split in what each side actually needed. Artisans wanted professional visibility. Customers wanted safety and confidence before handing money to a stranger they'd found online. The brand had to speak to both in the same breath, and it had to work in direct Nigerian sunlight at highway speed, not just on a screen.
Outdoor & Billboard
Billboard creative built for Nigerian streets: high-contrast yellow and black, real artisan photography in circular frames, and a direct question ('Looking for artisans?') instead of the usual jargon.
Messaging System
The same messaging system carried across LED screens, WhatsApp status templates, and social posts, always leading with the question already running through the customer's head.
Method
Field legibility testing and messaging A/B testing
Participants
Billboard viewers and WhatsApp template recipients
Key Findings
- 1Billboard legibility held at 50+ meters, confirmed on-site in actual Lagos traffic conditions
- 2'Looking for artisans?' outperformed every alternative headline by 3x in recall testing
- 3WhatsApp status templates reached a 40% forward rate among the people who received them
Design Process
Audience Research
Interviewed 20 artisans and 30 potential customers, which confirmed a trust gap sitting on both sides of the marketplace.
Logo & Identity
Designed the Findsly 'F' worked into a magnifying glass, standing in for discovery and location, rendered in yellow (#E8B624), black, and white.
Messaging System
Developed the 'Looking for artisans?' campaign line and carried it across posters, billboards, LED animations, and WhatsApp templates, paired with authentic artisan photography throughout.
Collateral & Guidelines
Produced tote bags, business cards, social templates, vehicle branding specs, and a full set of visual guidelines for print and digital.
Artisan Sign-Ups
Billboard Legibility
WhatsApp Shares
Recall vs Alternatives
Outcome
Artisan sign-ups grew 200% following the campaign, and WhatsApp templates got shared organically more than 10,000 times. The tote bags turned into unplanned street marketing on their own, generating impressions every time someone carried one through a market. The direct, plain-language messaging worked because it mirrored the customer's own inner monologue at the exact moment they were deciding whether to trust a stranger.
What We Learned
Designing for a specific geography means designing for its physical conditions too: sunlight intensity, vehicle speed past a billboard, the exact platform dimensions people actually use.
Messaging that mirrors what the customer is already thinking beat messaging that tried to be clever every single time it got tested head to head.
