My first role in the financial industry came after years working across tech and event design, worlds where minimalism and clean system thinking were the default.

Mansha Plan was a different kind of challenge from the start. There was no existing brand to build from, no visual language to reference, just a brief asking for something that felt antique, ornamental, and deeply considered.

The reasoning was deliberate: as a family-run firm built around a philosophy of multigenerational stewardship, they wanted a brand that communicated succession and boutique care, a direct rejection of the clean-cut corporate aesthetic that dominates Bay Street. Old world, in their words. The kind of aesthetic that has largely disappeared from modern design in favour of clean grids and sans-serifs, and for good reason: it is extraordinarily difficult to do without looking dated or decorative for its own sake.

Getting it right meant going back to primary sources. I spent time digging into European graphic traditions, historical print culture, and the visual languages of institutions that had been communicating permanence and trust for centuries. What emerged was a direction built around hand-drawn illustrations, scanned ephemera, historical typography, and analogue textures. In some ways the research brought me closer to my own roots than I expected.

The brand that came out of that process became the foundation for everything that followed at Mansha, including a full Webflow website built to carry that identity responsively across every screen size. These were the first two projects of what became two and a half years of work at the company.

What the project changed for me was more fundamental than a new visual style. Working within a tradition that prioritised feeling over function taught me that design is not always about communicating a concept clearly. Sometimes it is about communicating an emotion precisely.

To see the identity system in context, visit manshaplan.com.