The signal in the noise.
Creative Direction Brand Strategy Normal Finance
Creative Director & Brand Strategist
ZATO
Jake Penzato  / Normal Finance

Building brands that move
like movements.

3+
Years at Normal Finance
5
Platforms managed
01
Brand built from scratch
Brand Strategy / Visual Identity / Guerrilla Marketing / Adobe Creative Suite / Figma / DeFi & Web3 / Content Systems / Live Event Activations / Email Marketing / Social Analytics / Brand Strategy / Visual Identity / Guerrilla Marketing / Adobe Creative Suite / Figma / DeFi & Web3 / Content Systems / Live Event Activations / Email Marketing / Social Analytics /

Selected Work

View all →
01
M
Meridian 2025
Event · Branding · 100K+ Impressions
Meridian 2025
Physical merch, branded activations & social management. 100K+ impressions that week.
View case study →
02
L
Normal Finance
Launch Campaign
Campaign · Jan–Feb 2026
Launch Campaign
The official product launch. Full creative direction across every channel.
View case study →
03
N
Normal
Talks
Show Production · YouTube · 2026
Normal Talks
A branded talk show making crypto human. 3 episodes, weekly cadence.
View case study →
Z
About
Jake
Bio · Skills · Timeline
About Jake Penzato
Creative by instinct. Strategic by design.
Read more →
"Make crypto normal.
Live extraordinarily."
Normal Finance Brand Manifesto
Case Studies 2022 to Present

Work that
moves people.

Three years of brand building at Normal Finance. Real campaigns, real outcomes, real stakes.

4Case Studies
3+Years
$400K+AUM Grown
112K+Impressions
Meridian 2025
01
Meridian 2025
Where the brand went physical for the first time.
Event BrandingMerchSocial
2025
Launch Campaign
02
Launch Campaign
Building Normal in public from zero to live across every platform.
CampaignAmbassador SystemMultiplatform
2025–2026
Normal Talks
03
Normal Talks
A branded talk show making crypto human 3 episodes, weekly cadence.
Show ProductionThumbnail DesignYouTube
2026 Now
Coming Soon
04
The Brand System
The visual identity and architecture everything else is built on.
Brand IdentityVisual SystemStrategy
2022–Now
01
Meridian 2025
Where the brand went physical for the first time.
Event
Meridian 2025
Year
2025
Format
IRL + Social
102K
X Impressions
Sep 15–30
33.6K
Impressions on
event day alone
4,443
Total
engagements
274
New followers
in 16 days
Normal Finance team at Christ the Redeemer Meridian 2025, Rio de Janeiro
Normal Finance community hike Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro

Meridian 2025 brought the Stellar ecosystem to Rio de Janeiro and it was Normal Finance's most significant physical brand activation to date. The challenge: translate a digital-native DeFi brand into something people could hold, wear, and experience in person, at one of the most prestigious events in the Stellar calendar.

The execution was three-pronged. Custom Normal x Stellar t-shirts in two colorways and branded notebooks were designed and produced for attendees. The Normal community hike to Christ the Redeemer became an organic brand moment merch in hand, at one of the most iconic locations on earth. Social was managed remotely throughout, coordinating content in real time and capturing the energy of each day as it unfolded.

The results were entirely organic. No paid spend. 102K impressions on X in 16 days, peaking at 33,600 on September 17th event day one. 4,443 engagements and 274 new followers driven purely by content that gave people something worth sharing.

Event Branding Merch Design Social Management Community Activation Normal x Stellar Adobe CC
Stellar Meridian portal installation Rio de Janeiro 2025
Stellar Meridian portal installation Rio de Janeiro, Sep 17–18 2025
02
Normal Finance Launch Campaign
The product is live. Now the world finds out.
Period
Jan–Feb 2026
Scope
Full Channel
Platforms
X · Instagram
𝕏 Twitter 32 days
55.8K
Total impressions
11K
Peak day
launch
5,712
Engagements
197
New followers
Instagram 30 days
56.7K
Total views
85.7%
Non-follower reach
978
Interactions
Normal Finance Own the Market. In One Click.
Product launch creative "Own the Market. In One Click."
Benjamin Barlow Krag Brasil
Benjamin Barlow Krag Brasil 🇧🇷
Sam Sutton United States
Sam Sutton United States 🇺🇸
Αρειων Κολοσεντας Greece
Αρειων Κολοσεντας Ελλάδα 🇬🇷

I built and managed Normal's global ambassador rollout from the ground up sourcing partners, directing the portrait art for each country, and owning distribution across every platform. Each post followed a consistent template system: country flag background, landmark, ambassador portrait, and Normal branding designed to scale infinitely.

Live at launch: Brasil, United States, Greece, Nigeria. In production: India and Japan layouts complete, pending partner confirmation. The goal was establishing Normal as a genuinely global brand from day one, not a US-centric crypto project.

Normal Finance platform analytics Feb 17, 2026
Normal Finance platform analytics Feb 17, 2026 · 164 investors · $62,372 total volume · 121 product commits

The Normal Finance launch campaign marked the moment the platform went public and the creative strategy had to match the weight of that moment. The goal wasn't just awareness. It was to make the launch feel inevitable, like something the community had been waiting for, not something being sold to them.

Three content pillars drove the campaign. Product storytelling introduced the platform through clean mockup graphics and sharp copy "Own the Market. In One Click." The global ambassador series put real community members front and center, each paired with their country's landmark, making Normal feel international from day one. And brand art like Eau de Index used unexpected creative to build intrigue around upcoming features before they launched.

Across X and Instagram combined, the campaign generated over 112K impressions and reached nearly 12K unique accounts with 85.7% of Instagram views coming from non-followers, confirming the campaign was driving genuine discovery, not just feeding existing community.

Campaign Strategy Content Design Ambassador Program Product Marketing Brand Art Multiplatform
Eau de Index Normal Finance
Eau de Index luxury fragrance language to tease Normal's upcoming indexing feature. This stopped the scroll by looking nothing like crypto.
03
Normal Talks
A branded talk show built to make crypto feel human.
Format
Talk Show · Podcast
Episodes
3 Live · EP4 In Production
Platforms
YouTube · Spotify · X
Normal Talks EP. 01 Normal is Live!
EP. 01
Normal is Live!
The debut episode. Joshua Blew and Justin Benjamin sit down to announce the launch of Normal Finance and what it means for everyday investors.
Normal Talks EP. 02 Why Be Normal?
EP. 02
Why Be Normal?
Jake joins host Justin Benjamin to break down Normal's core thesis why financial freedom should be available to everyone. Thumbnail design, format direction, and full show production.
Normal Talks EP. 03 The Normal Dev Team
EP. 03
The Normal Dev Team
First time the engineering team sat down on camera. Concept, thumbnail design, guest coordination, and distribution across YouTube, Spotify, and X.

Normal Talks is an ongoing series — new episodes drop weekly. Each produced end-to-end: concept, guest brief, thumbnail, clip editing, and cross-platform distribution. EP. 04 drops next week.

Show Production Thumbnail Design Content Strategy Guest Coordination YouTube Spotify Clip Editing
04
The Normal Finance Brand System
The foundation everything else is built on.
Timeline
2022–Present
Reach
5 Platforms
Scope
Full System
3
Brand pillars
5
Platforms deployed
3+
Years of iteration
[ Drop brand system visuals here color palette, typography, logo, guidelines ]

When Normal Finance was being built, it didn't have a brand it had an idea. The challenge was to turn a DeFi platform into something people could feel: a movement with a personality, a point of view, and a reason to exist beyond the product.

The result was a three-pillar brand architecture designed to work at every level. Movement: "Make crypto normal" the mission. Lifestyle: "Live extraordinarily" the aspiration. Product: "Trade anything, index everything" the utility. Every piece of content, every campaign, every activation maps back to one of these three pillars.

The visual identity was built in Figma and executed across Adobe Creative Suite a system rigorous enough to be consistent across five platforms, flexible enough to evolve over three years without ever losing coherence.

Brand Architecture Visual Identity Voice & Tone Figma Adobe CC Systems Design DeFi / Web3

Creative
by instinct.
Strategic
by design.

I'm Jake Penzato Creative Director and Brand Strategist at Normal Finance, a DeFi platform built on Stellar blockchain that lets users invest in synthetic assets without KYC. Over the last three years I've built Normal's brand from scratch: visual identity, voice, content systems, and a marketing engine that runs across five platforms simultaneously.

My work lives at the intersection of brand intuition and data. I design systems that feel alive, then I measure everything. From event activations at Meridian to analytics dashboards built from raw CSV exports I believe the best marketing is indistinguishable from good storytelling.

I'm currently completing an Associate's in Marketing & Business Administration at Aurora University, because understanding capital markets makes me a sharper brand builder and vice versa.

↓ Download Résumé
Creative & Design
  • Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator
  • Adobe Premiere Pro & After Effects
  • Figma UI/UX & brand systems
  • Brand identity & visual language
  • Typography & art direction
  • Merch & physical brand production
Marketing & Strategy
  • Brand positioning & architecture
  • Campaign strategy & execution
  • Content production 5 platforms
  • SEO, keyword research, analytics
  • Email marketing & HTML templates
  • Live event & community activations
Domain Knowledge
  • DeFi / Web3 / Crypto
  • Stellar blockchain ecosystem
  • Synthetic assets & structured products
  • Corporate Finance (FIN 4250)
Experience & Education
2025–Now
Creative Director
Normal Finance
2026–Now
Creator & Producer
Normal The Talk Show
2023–Now
A.S. Marketing / Business Administration
Aurora University · Collegiate Wrestler

Let's build
something
unforgettable.

Creative Director with three years building Normal Finance from the ground up brand strategy, campaign execution, and full creative direction across every platform. Open to brand strategy, creative direction, and marketing roles.

Creative Director Normal Finance Apr 2025 Present
Business Development Lead Normal Finance Apr 2024 May 2025
Partner Team Lead Normal Finance Sep 2023 Apr 2024
Associate's Marketing / Business Aurora University, IL 2023 2026
Currently heads down
Message received.
I'll be in touch.