Kin
About
Kin is on a mission to change home insurance from what it is to what it should be— using data and technology to make coverage more accessible, especially in high-risk markets underserved by traditional insurers. Founded in 2016, Kin crossed the $1 billion valuation mark in 2023, cementing itself as one of insurtech's most ambitious players. As the company scaled, its visual brand needed to keep pace — moving from a fragmented collection of design decisions into a cohesive, scalable system capable of supporting both product and marketing at a unicorn's velocity.
Challenge
Hypergrowth is hard on brand systems. Kin's existing visual language had been built piecemeal — illustrations felt disconnected, color usage was inconsistent, and marketing materials lacked the cohesion needed to build trust in an industry where credibility is everything. There was also a critical gap between the product and marketing design experiences, with no unified system bridging the two. Insurance is a category where customers need to feel reassured at every touchpoint, and the brand wasn't fully delivering on that promise.
Role
As Design Lead, I directed a comprehensive brand refresh grounded in customer research — ensuring every decision was informed by what Kin's customers actually respond to. I rebuilt the color system with clearer status colors and design tokens to support product patterns and AI workflows, created a new illustration library for consistency across product and marketing, and built a photography library vetted by both compliance and underwriting teams. The outcome has been faster, more consistent design output, quicker agency onboarding with stronger guidelines, and a token system robust enough to support AI-assisted workflows that generate on-brand designs with significantly less manual effort.
