Nova Finance
A dark-mode investing app for the next generation of self-directed investors.
- Client
- Nova Financial, Inc.
- Location
- New York, USA
- Duration
- 6 months
- Services
- UI/UX Design, Design System, Motion Design, Brand Identity
Nova set out to build the investing platform their team wished existed — powerful enough for professionals, calm enough to use at midnight. We designed the product surface, the design system, and the identity that runs through both.
Retail investing apps are either gamified to the point of manipulation or so dense they alienate new users. Nova needed a product that treated its users as intelligent adults, without hiding the complexity that serious investors demand.
We built the design system before the product — 220 tokens, 60 components, and a motion language grounded in physical inertia. Every chart, every order confirmation, every empty state was designed to lower the user's heart rate. The dark palette is warmer than convention: closer to graphite than ink.
Nova launched to 40,000 waitlist users and hit a $2B assets-under-management milestone in ten months. The design system now underpins three internal products and has been open-sourced under the Nova name.
Selected artifacts.
The work, measured.
Assets under management
DAU / MAU ratio
App Store rating
Design tokens shipped
“Goli didn't just design our app — they gave us a way of thinking about product decisions that we still use every day.”
