Overview
The Bankrate Awards is an annual flagship program celebrating excellence across financial products and services. For the 2025 edition, I led the design of the awards landing pages, developing a cohesive visual system that elevated the program's prestige while maintaining brand consistency across touchpoints.
A key challenge was creating distinctive, memorable visuals for each award category without relying on generic stock imagery or illustration. To solve this, I designed custom 3D assets in Blender—sculptural forms that communicated category themes through material, lighting, and composition. These 3D visuals became the foundation of the awards identity, appearing across the web experience.
Landing Page Design
The awards landing page needed to balance editorial credibility with visual impact. I designed a clean, structured layout that prioritized category clarity, winner recognition, and trust-building elements while integrating the custom 3D visuals as hero moments for each category.
Bankrate Awards 2025 hubpage featuring prominent award category with custom 3D visuals
Category hubpage showing multiple award types with consistent visual treatment
Bankrate Visionaries Winners showcase highlighting industry leaders and innovators
Blender 3D Assets
Each award category received a custom 3D asset designed to communicate its theme through form, material, and lighting. Rather than literal representations, I approached each visual as an abstract expression of the category's values—trust, innovation, accessibility, or excellence.
Design Approach
- • Abstract forms over literal representations
- • Material qualities convey category themes (metallic, glass, textured)
- • Consistent lighting setup for visual cohesion
- • Optimized for web performance without sacrificing quality
Homepage Hero Assets
The homepage required bold, eye-catching 3D visuals to establish the awards program's visual identity and drive engagement. These hero assets set the tone for the entire awards experience.
The Gold Standard
Expert Advice
Are you an Award Winner?
Category Assets
Individual category visuals designed to represent each award type with distinctive forms and materials.
Auto Insurance
Auto Loans
Banking
Credit Cards
Home Equity
Home Insurance
Investing
Life Insurance
Personal Loans
Small Business
Taxes
How they were used
The 3D assets were integrated into category landing pages as hero visuals, establishing immediate brand recognition and visual hierarchy.
"The 3D assets transformed the awards from a list into a visual experience—each category felt distinct yet part of a unified system."
Outcome
- • Created a distinctive visual identity for the awards program
- • Established a reusable 3D asset system for future editions
- • Delivered cohesive brand experience across web, display, and social
- • Elevated perceived prestige and authority of the awards
Learnings
3D as a design material, not decoration
Treating 3D assets as core design elements (not just embellishment) created a more cohesive and intentional visual system.
Modular systems enable consistency
Designing templates and systems (rather than one-off assets) ensured quality and efficiency across dozens of deliverables.
Abstraction communicates more than literalism
Abstract 3D forms allowed each category to feel premium and distinct without relying on obvious financial iconography.