Invest
your spare
change.
Acorns turns everyday spending into investing. Buy something, round up to the next dollar, and the spare change goes to work on its own. I designed the core of that experience: the round-ups, the recurring investments, and the portfolio that holds it all together.
App Store preview
Thirty seconds for the App Store. Every feature, shown the way it really works: round-ups, recurring investing, the portfolio. Real screens, real motion, cut to music. A whole product you take in at a glance, then want to watch again.
/01 · Brief
Invest as
you spend.
The idea is simple. Spend the way you always do, and Acorns rounds every purchase up to the next dollar. The spare change goes straight into a diversified portfolio, on its own.
I collaborated with the design team on ads, emails, landers, and the app and web experiences.
Beyond the product: I shot all the photography, including headshots for more than a hundred people on the team.
/02 · Approach
Usable first,
unmistakable.
Start with the person, not the portfolio. Most investing apps open with dense tables and a wall of red and green. We designed Acorns the other way around, mapping how a first-timer would actually move through each screen before any style went on top, so the interface feels obvious on day one.
Then a brand that belongs to no one else: warm, optimistic, a little playful, the opposite of a banking or investing app. It draws people in instead of intimidating them — frictionless enough to disappear, and distinct enough that nothing else in fintech looks like it.
/03 · Outcome
Millions of
investors.
I joined as employee #15. By the time I moved on, Acorns had grown to around 150 people and a million active customers. Today it's one of the most-downloaded investing apps in the country, with over $30 billion invested.
