Founded in 1936, Russell Investments has $149.3 billion in assets under its management with approximately 1,750 associates in more than 20 offices worldwide. Many of the world’s leading organizations depend on their expertise to help build long-term financial security for their business and their employees. As Russell expanded into the growing investment field of ETFs, it was critical that it have an informational website reflective of the company’s trusted brand.

FULL STORY

One site, many goals
There were a number of objectives for the standalone site. First, the site had to educate potential investors about Russell ETFs and provide analysis tools for informed decision-making. The site had to demonstrate Russell as a thought leader in the field by showcasing Russell’s unique perspective on investing and the ETF market. Lastly, the site needed to complement the Russell brand and family of websites with its recently refreshed visual design.

Content strategy key to design
Collaborating closely with Russell’s team, we created personas to tap into the needs of various investor types, and to help Russell prioritize their target markets. Through content strategy work, we identified the appropriate tone for those audiences—financial advisors and individual investors—to convey Russell’s trusted expertise online. We worked closely with russell.com’s visual designers too, making sure we were complementing the main site in our designs.

An informational site for an established brand—from scratch
The new site allows investors to interact with fund data at a glance, or more deeply with a number of robust analysis tools. The data is scannable, understandable and displayed in a way that busy investors can get the information they need and get out. In order to meet an aggressive launch schedule, Hot Studio completed the design of this scalable site, which can accommodate more tools and information in the future, within a very strict timeline.