• Talcott Financial

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  • Talcott Financial

  • /

  • Talcott Financial

  • /

How do you redesign a company's digital presence while the company itself is still evolving?

How do you redesign a company's digital presence while the company itself is still evolving?

Consolidating three sites into one that's built to launch a new retail offering without disrupting the institutional clients and legacy customers already relying on the old one.

Consolidating three sites into one that's built to launch a new retail offering without disrupting the institutional clients and legacy customers already relying on the old one.

Consolidating three sites into one that's built to launch a new retail offering without disrupting the institutional clients and legacy customers already relying on the old one.

Domain

Financial Services

My Role

Design Lead

Timeline

2024 - 2025

Context

Talcott Financial, spun off from The Hartford in 2018, is a life insurance and annuity company preparing to launch its first retail offering. I led the design of its unified web presence from strategy through to website QA, consolidating three fragmented sites into one experience.

Challenge

One company. Three websites. Multiple audiences.

Talcott's digital presence reflected its organizational history rather than the experience customers expected. The redesign needed to unify the brand without disrupting the people who already depended on it.

Three sites. Each business line operated its own website, creating inconsistent branding, navigation, and information architecture.

A brand in transition. The upcoming retail launch required introducing a more approachable consumer experience while preserving credibility with institutional audiences.

Legacy customers couldn't be left behind. Thousands of existing policyholders still relied on a separate portal, making continuity just as important as modernization.

research and strategy

Finding Talcott's new space

I started with an audit of Talcott's existing digital experiences and a review of the competitive landscape. I worked with stakeholders to understand where the brand was currently and where leadership wanted it to go.

  • Insight #1

    The current experience wasn't ready for their new audience.

    The three sites were difficult to understand as parts of the same company. They were also heavily oriented toward Talcott's existing audiences, leaving little room for the new retail customer.

  • Insight #2

    A new visual direction needed internal team alignment

    A stakeholder questionnaire revealed different perspectives on how Talcott should show up as the company evolved. Moderating a workshop with key decision-makers, we were able to align on the audiences, priorities, and brand attributes the new experience needed to support.

  • Insight #3

    Competitors fell into two visual approaches

    During competitor research, I found brands leaned either heavily institutional or overly cheerful and lifestyle-driven. This gave Talcott an opportunity to occupy a more distinctive middle ground: professional, but warm and approachable.

  • Insight #4

    Brand attributes became design principles

    Working with the brand strategist, I translated the workshop outcomes into four brand pillars that could guide visual decisions across the site.

  • Insight #1

    The current experience wasn't ready for their new audience.

    The three sites were difficult to understand as parts of the same company. They were also heavily oriented toward Talcott's existing audiences, leaving little room for the new retail customer.

  • Insight #2

    A new visual direction needed internal team alignment

    A stakeholder questionnaire revealed different perspectives on how Talcott should show up as the company evolved. Moderating a workshop with key decision-makers, we were able to align on the audiences, priorities, and brand attributes the new experience needed to support.

  • Insight #3

    Competitors fell into two visual approaches

    During competitor research, I found brands leaned either heavily institutional or overly cheerful and lifestyle-driven. This gave Talcott an opportunity to occupy a more distinctive middle ground: professional, but warm and approachable.

  • Insight #4

    Brand attributes became design principles

    Working with the brand strategist, I translated the workshop outcomes into four brand pillars that could guide visual decisions across the site.

  • Insight #1

    The current experience wasn't ready for their new audience.

    The three sites were difficult to understand as parts of the same company. They were also heavily oriented toward Talcott's existing audiences, leaving little room for the new retail customer.

  • Insight #2

    A new visual direction needed internal team alignment

    A stakeholder questionnaire revealed different perspectives on how Talcott should show up as the company evolved. Moderating a workshop with key decision-makers, we were able to align on the audiences, priorities, and brand attributes the new experience needed to support.

  • Insight #3

    Competitors fell into two visual approaches

    During competitor research, I found brands leaned either heavily institutional or overly cheerful and lifestyle-driven. This gave Talcott an opportunity to occupy a more distinctive middle ground: professional, but warm and approachable.

  • Insight #4

    Brand attributes became design principles

    Working with the brand strategist, I translated the workshop outcomes into four brand pillars that could guide visual decisions across the site.

Exploration

Translating brand into a visual language

Translating brand into a visual language

I explored four visual directions, each emphasizing different aspects of Talcott's emerging brand.

Open

Open

Dynamic

Dynamic

Sophisticated

Sophisticated

Inviting

Inviting

Final Direction

Why we chose “Part of the Picture”

Why this was the right choice

Why we chose “Part of the Picture”

Balanced confidence with warmth. Financial services often lean heavily on authority. We intentionally introduced softer forms and colors and approachable photography without sacrificing credibility.

Built from existing brand. Curved motifs drawn from the logo created continuity between the old and new brand.

Flexible enough to grow. The system could support institutional content today while accommodating future consumer experiences.

Ultimately, Part of the Picture created the strongest connection between the mission, the audience, and the brand.

It made inclusion visible. Rather than talking about representation, the design system physically centered people throughout the experience.

It strengthened the existing brand. The visual language evolved directly from the PAN Foundation’s new logo, making the microsite feel like a natural extension of the organization instead of a disconnected campaign.

It scaled beyond a single website. The framing device became a reusable design pattern across components, layouts, and future initiatives. This was one reason why the system was later adopted for PAN Foundation’s broader website redesign.

Designing key experiences

Helping two audiences feel equally welcome

Helping two audiences feel equally welcome

The homepage introduced Talcott's new retail offering without making institutional clients feel secondary. Rather than prioritizing one audience, the layout positioned both as complementary parts of the same company.

The homepage introduced Talcott's new retail offering without making institutional clients feel secondary. Rather than prioritizing one audience, the layout positioned both as complementary parts of the same company.

Supporting legacy customers through change

Customers arriving through old bookmarks were met with a dedicated transition experience that confirmed they were in the right place and directed them to either the new site or the legacy portal.

Increasing visibility for a key business tool

As Talcott prepared to launch its first retail annuity offering, stakeholders were concerned that the new income calculator wouldn't receive enough visibility. I designed persistent entry points that promoted the tool where prospective customers naturally explored retirement products.

  1. Originally it appeared only in the top navigation, under Retirement solutions.

  2. I added a CTA that appears across retail-focused pages to keep the calculator discoverable throughout the journey.

  3. Also added a dedicated link beside Login for quick access by financial professionals and returning users.

Final homepage design

Impact

  1. Unified Talcott's digital presence into a single site that supports institutional, retail, and legacy audiences.

  1. Unified Talcott’s digital presence into a single site that supports institutional, retail, and legacy audiences.

  1. Built a scalable system with a strong foundation in our research aligned with the company's new strategy.

  1. Built a scalable system with a strong foundation in our research that aligned with the company’s new strategy.

  1. Introduced consumer-focused experiences like an interactive tool, resources and assets supporting the new retail offering.

  1. Introduced consumer-focused experiences like an interactive tool, resources and assets supporting the new retail offering.

  1. Enabled independent content management through clear authoring patterns and user friendly CMS components.

Learnings

Digital transformation starts with organizational alignment.

The most important design decisions happened before the first screen was ever made.

New design doesn't need to come at the expense of continuity.

Thinking through how legacy users would interact with the new site was just as important as designing the experiences for new customers.

Strong strategy creates consistency.

Grounding the visual system in the stakeholder-tested brand principles gave every design decision a clear rationale and kept the experience cohesive as it grew.

Different audiences don't need different brands.

A shared visual system and clear audience pathways, allowed Talcott to evolve toward retail without fragmenting the experience again.