National Iron Bank Website
What We Did
No bills, no thrills.
National Iron Bank is a historic community bank founded in 1847, based in Northwestern Connecticut. Providing a range of personal and commercial banking services, their focus is providing personalized customer care and community investment.
Project Goals
During this project’s kickoff, one big goal became clear: the team at National Iron Bank wanted this website to feel like a digital representation of going into one of their physical bank branches — warm, friendly, and community-oriented. Over the years, more and more customers became online dependent for their banking needs, lowering the number who came into a physical branch on a regular basis. That combined with the influx of city-defectors to the Litchfield area of Connecticut during the pandemic made NIB reevaluate the way they were serving their clients. Working hand in hand, we created a website full of imagery from the surrounding areas that provided helpful, easy banking wherever and whenever needed.
It just makes cents
Design
The only brand element the NIB team wanted to carry over from their legacy site was their logo and the blue tone that came with it. After getting to know the company and the team’s goals, we created an expanded blue color palette, complete with a deep, calm navy, a bright electric blue, and a light sky blue. A neutral cream completes the site and provides the background of every page. This color palette only complemented the custom photography National Iron Bank shot around their branch locations.
Trying to strike a balance between its long history and current times, the Julia Balfour team introduced elements that were nods to both aesthetics — clean lines and card-style containers mixed with ornamental stroke graphics and a classic serif. Using a classic, bold typeface for headings, a clean, modern sans serif paired well to evoke a clean and trustworthy community resource. Bright and easy to interpret icons were also implemented in helpful content blocks across the site, geared towards the user’s needs.
We’d bank on it
Building Branches
National Iron Bank locations were very important to highlight on their new website. Specialized content rows were concepted and designed to share important details for each branch. From a landing page with a row for each location with the most important details and an image, customers can navigate to their local branch where they get even more contact details and hours, as well as meet the branch manager and see any events that location may be having. It may be their digital headquarters, but community is always top of mind for the NIB team.
Every word counts
Content Strategy
Our content strategy centered on transparency and user empowerment. We restructured product pages to showcase all essential details upfront, organizing information into consistent, scannable sections that greet users immediately. We consolidated individual service pages into comprehensive hub pages, creating clear destinations where customers could explore everything related to personal or business banking in one place.
Understanding NIB’s focus on relationship building, we developed a strategic cross-linking architecture that creates natural pathways between complementary products—checking pages connect to savings options, business pages reference personal products for owners managing both. Every product description was crafted to emphasize customer benefits and real-world value, modernizing National Iron Bank’s digital voice to reflect how people bank today while preserving the community-focused warmth that defines their 150-year legacy.
