Axiom Finance

Axiom's existing platform had grown organically over four years. Every new feature was bolted onto a brittle foundation — inconsistent data models, duplicated UI patterns, and a frontend that took 8 seconds to load on a good day.

Their analysts were spending more time fighting the tool than using it. Churn was climbing. The engineering team was paralysed by technical debt. They needed a complete rebuild, but couldn't afford to stop shipping.

We started with a two-week architecture sprint — mapping every data entity, API contract, and user flow before writing a line of UI. This gave us a stable foundation that the design and engineering teams could build on in parallel.

The design system was built token-first: spacing, colour, typography, and motion all defined as variables before any component was composed. This meant every screen we built was consistent by default, not by accident.

We used a strangler fig pattern for the migration — new modules replaced old ones incrementally, so Axiom's team could keep shipping features while we rebuilt the foundation beneath them.

The new platform centres on a unified workspace model — every entity, transaction, and workflow visible from a single context. Navigation is spatial rather than hierarchical, so analysts can move between related data without losing their place.

We built a custom charting system optimised for financial data: sparklines, waterfall charts, and variance tables that render in under 50ms even with 10,000-row datasets. Every interaction has a corresponding motion state — loading, updating, error — so the interface always communicates what's happening.

The design system shipped with 140 components, full dark mode, and a Figma library that the Axiom design team now owns and extends independently.