BRAND DESIGN

Stanza

TIMELINE

OCT 2024 - FEB 2025

ROLE

Founding brand designer

TEAM

4 founding members, Stanford University

RESULT

Branding, logo, landing page

OVERVIEW

Problem

Most AI legal tools only touch the writing. Attorneys still do the actual coordination themselves: chasing evidence, checking which form version is current, reassembling exhibits by hand. AI helps with the smallest part of the job and leaves the rest untouched.

Context

I joined Stanza, a pre-seed startup, as founding brand designer, working alongside three Stanford co-founders to take the product from concept to first-look. The hard part wasn't making it look like software, it was making immigration attorneys, who are naturally skeptical of automation, trust it with cases that carry real consequences.

LOGO DESIGN

Brainstorming for variety.

I explored three directions before converging, since the logo needed to do two things at once: read as a sophisticated product, and feel trustworthy to someone who doesn't trust software by default.

DESIGN DECISION

Lean into the “S” logo to optimize for brand recognition.

Between four strong directions, I chose the one an attorney would recognize and recall fastest. The final mark keeps V1's stacked-form logic, so it still reads as organized, systematic work, and folds in the asterisk from V2 as a small red accent, giving the identity a citation-mark detail. The result borrows Apple's instinct for reducing a mark to the fewest necessary strokes.

WIREFRAME

Strike a balance between highlighting features and emphasizing the holistic system.

LANDING PAGE

Center the product in the launch page’s design.

I designed the landing page to center the product as a system, rather than individual features. In the landing page, you walk through the product experience end-to-end.