A Face for Fintech
From research to character: building a mascot people could trust
Role
Character strategy and original concept
Duration
Aug 2023 – May 2024 · Launched Jul 2025
Company
Sahl
Skills
#
Character Design
#
Brand
Overview
Sahl makes household payments easy — but easy only matters if people trust you. In Egypt’s fintech market, the hardest users to win are the ones who need the product most: lower-income, less tech-literate customers who are understandably wary of trusting a new app with their money.
The Problem
Sahl needed a recognizable, friendly face — something to humanize a technical service and build familiarity across marketing and, eventually, the product itself.
My Role
I initiated the mascot research, built the character strategy, and designed the original concept — chosen from three designers’ visions — then developed it through v3 before handing visual refinement to our team’s illustrator.
Process
Research → Strategy → Character → Visual design → Rollout plan
Why a Mascot
I started with research: how mascots work in B2C versus B2B, and close studies of two companies doing it well. Salesforce built an entire mascot family, each character fronting a product or community. Hootsuite’s Owly became the relatable voice of the social media managers who actually use the tool.
That raised our key strategic question: one mascot or many? Sahl serves both consumers and businesses, but we were still a young brand — multiple characters would confuse before they could connect. We chose one mascot who could wear different hats per context: the same face on a koshk poster, a LinkedIn post, and in your app.
The proposal went through our design lead, then the marketing manager, then a C-level presentation. All three approved.
Building The Character
Before any drawing, we defined who this character is. Each designer on the team drafted the traits that made sense to them; we merged them into one foundation. Fast, empathetic, innovative. Three values: time, people, innovation. A signature object: a lightning-bolt button on his robotic arm, tying him to Sahl’s logo. Even his fears mapped to product promises — crowds and downtime, the exact things Sahl exists to eliminate.
His working name was Ra3d — thunder, to Sahl’s lightning.
From Sketch to Budz
Each of the three designers on the team sketched their own vision for the character. Mine was chosen as the direction, and I developed it from the first sketch through v3.
We had set clear visual principles early: simple shapes, two to three colors, a silhouette you’d recognize anywhere. My drafts established the direction but weren’t fully landing those principles. Fatma ElQady, the strongest illustrator on our team, took over from v4 and drove them home — the final Budz is rounder, simpler, and friendlier, and it’s what finally cleared the marketing approval round and then C-level, with further refinements deliberately parked for a future rebrand cycle, the way any company iterates on its brand.
Defining what success looked like, then recognizing whose craft would get us there, was the job.
Evolution: Sketch → v1 → v2 → v3
Final Budz illustration
Launch & Rollout
Development wrapped in mid-2024, but the public launch waited until July 2025 — revenue-critical campaigns took priority for a small startup marketing team, and the mascot could wait. Startup prioritization in practice.
The launch was an animated origin story produced with an agency and published across Sahl’s socials. Since then, Budz fronts Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and LinkedIn in both stills and reels, joined the company’s new event booth, and made his first in-app appearance on the loading screen.
I moved from the marketing team to the product team in June 2024; the team carried the rollout forward roughly on the plan I’d set — model sheet, expressions library, print and swag, storyboard, launch video, and in-app presence.
Final Budz illustration
Sitemap of the entire app before any changes.
Budz in the wild: Sahl social content. Produced by the Sahl marketing team.
By The Numbers
Final character illustration by Fatma ElQady. Launch animation by agency partner. Rollout and social content by the Sahl marketing team.