We pitched a financial advisor three homepage directions. Here's the one we'd build.

A real client, not a speculative one

Most of the redesigns on this blog are unsolicited: a company we have no relationship with, picked apart and rebuilt for the exercise. This one is different. Afton Financial Group is an actual client, an independent financial planning practice in Red Bank, New Jersey, founded in 2016 by Chirag Savalia. They came to us to redesign their homepage, and with their permission, we're sharing one of the three directions we presented.

We pitched three genuinely different directions, not three variations on one idea: an editorial magazine concept ("The Manifesto"), a tech-forward concept built around an interactive equity-compensation modeling tool ("The Product"), and a boutique, classical concept aimed at referral-driven hospitality clients ("The Legacy"). This post is about the first one. The other two stay internal for now.

Why an editorial frame, for a financial advisor

Afton's actual client base splits into three groups that don't usually get grouped together: tech and biotech employees sitting on equity comp (RSUs, ISOs, 409A valuations), business and hotel owners (a meaningful share of Afton's book comes through AAHOA, the Asian American Hotel Owners Association), and families managing multi-generation wealth. What unites them isn't demographic, it's a shared frustration: they've all been sold the standard 1%-of-assets advisory relationship, and none of them think it fits what they actually need.

That's a positioning problem you solve with a point of view, not a features list. So "The Manifesto" treats the homepage like the cover of an opinionated trade publication: "Issue No. 09," a pull-quote strong enough to alienate the wrong prospect on purpose, and a "Journal" section that reads like editorial content instead of a blog widget bolted onto a template.

Decision 1: Lead with the complaint, not the pitch

What's on the page.

The hero headline doesn't introduce Afton. It states the objection first: "Most advisors charge 1% to manage your portfolio. Almost none have read your vesting schedule." The manifesto section below it goes further, an oversized pull-quote in the founder's voice: "They were charging 1% AUM to manage her brokerage account, yet had never once asked to see her tax return or vesting schedule. That's not planning. That's billing."

Why this works.

Financial services marketing defaults to reassurance: trust badges, soft photography, "your future in good hands." That copy is interchangeable across ten thousand advisor sites and it filters for nobody. A prospect who's equity-rich and advisor-skeptical, which is exactly who Afton wants, doesn't need to be reassured. They need to see the specific thing they're already frustrated about, named out loud, before they'll believe a firm actually understands their situation. Leading with the complaint does the qualifying work a hero section is supposed to do.

Decision 2: Segment by situation, not by product

What's on the page.

A three-card "Who we built this for" grid, each card numbered like a manifesto clause (No. 01, No. 02, No. 03): equity comp for tech and biotech employees, business and hotel owners, and families managing generational wealth. No card mentions a product name, an account type, or an AUM minimum.

Why this works.

Most advisory sites segment by what they sell (retirement planning, estate planning, investment management). Afton's actual differentiation is who they serve and what those people's finances have in common, equity that's hard to value, ownership structures that don't fit a standard retirement conversation, wealth that's becoming a family responsibility. Segmenting the page this way lets a prospect self-identify in one glance instead of reading three service descriptions to figure out if any of them apply.

Decision 3: Put the fee argument in writing, not behind a call

What's on the page.

A dedicated section, styled as a small editorial thesis, arguing directly against the 1%-AUM model: "The AUM model gets advisors paid more when markets go up and less when they go down. It rewards portfolio rebalancing, which is the easy part of our job." Next to it, a bordered "What real planning includes" checklist: reading the 409A, modeling exercise scenarios across funding rounds, AMT exposure, coordinating with the client's CPA and attorney.

Why this works.

Fee structure is the first objection a sophisticated prospect raises, usually right before they close the tab. Advisory sites almost universally dodge it, "contact us to discuss," which reads as evasive to exactly the audience Afton is trying to win. Answering it in the page itself, in specific language about what the fee actually buys, removes the biggest reason a qualified visitor leaves without booking a call.

Decision 4: Trust signals that aren't generic

What's on the page.

A proof strip with four numbers: founded 2016, two specialized practice areas, licensed in NJ and PA, reachable 365 days a year. The footer carries the compliance disclosures a regulated advisory practice actually needs: FINRA/SIPC, BrokerCheck, ADV Part 2A, the broker-dealer relationship spelled out in full, not buried in a linked PDF.

Why this works.

Generic trust badges (a stock photo of a handshake, an "as seen in" logo bar) do nothing for a financial buyer who already knows every advisor claims to be trustworthy. Specific, checkable facts, a founding year, a jurisdiction, a real broker-dealer name, work harder because they're falsifiable. Putting the compliance language in the main footer instead of a buried disclosures page also signals the firm isn't trying to hide the regulatory relationship, which itself is a trust signal in this category.

Decision 5: Type and color that reads as opinion, not template

What's on the page.

Fraunces, a warm, slightly humanist serif with real optical variation, for every headline and pull-quote, set against near-black ink (#0E0D0A) and warm cream (#EFE8D9). Inter Tight carries the body copy. Two accent colors do all the work: amber (#D4A85C) for emphasis and calm moments, a desaturated rust (#B25535) reserved for the sharper, more confrontational lines, like the italicized "That's not planning. That's billing" close of the manifesto quote.

Why this works.

Wealth management sites converge on a narrow palette: navy, gold, white, a serif that reads as "established" without reading as anything in particular. Fraunces has more personality than that default without tipping into anything unserious, and pairing dark ink with warm cream (instead of navy-on-white) borrows the visual register of an editorial publication rather than a bank brochure. The two-accent-color discipline, amber for warmth, rust held in reserve for the harder statements, means color carries meaning instead of decorating every heading the same way.

What we didn't build into this direction

A few things this concept deliberately leaves out. No stock photography of advisors in suits, the editorial frame does the credibility work instead. No product screenshots or app previews, Afton's product is judgment and relationships, not software. No AUM calculator or account minimum stated up front, the fee conversation happens in the first call, on purpose, once the site has already done the work of attracting the right prospect.

What this scope looks like

As an editorial homepage rebuild for a regulated financial practice, "The Manifesto" is an Accelerator-tier project at Plinth: strategy and copy direction, full visual design, and a build that has to account for compliance review on every page before it ships. That's roughly the same scope as a SaaS homepage with one added constraint most projects don't have: legal has to sign off on every claim before launch, which is real work, and worth budgeting for if you're in a regulated category considering something like this.

If you're a financial advisor, planner, or anyone in a regulated industry who's tired of the same navy-and-headshot template everyone else in the category uses, we'd like to talk. Book a call.

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For more on how we approach a redesign decision by decision, see the 1Password concept redesign or the Marr Labs voice AI concepts.

Curious what a project like this costs? See Plinth's transparent pricing — four tiers starting at $3,500. Or read how much a website actually costs in 2026.