Across the Board

Blog on e-business and online payments.

Ania is interested in all things design, as well as popular literature and film. She writes about the pretty side of credit cards and e-business. She's also responsible for some neat infographics and spends her free time writing short fantasy stories. An avid reader of graphic novels, she tries in vain to finish one herself. Has a credit card and is not afraid of using it online. Owner of a rather wicked sense of humor.

All posts by Ania:



Google plus cover equals… the making of

It didn’t take Google long to follow into Facebook footsteps and change the look of their social website. Unlike Facebook, the change was not as drastic and didn’t leave an unprepared profile looking plain. Still, an updated look meant some redecorating on our (the PayLane’s) part.

Google offered two possible looks of the site: one involved a long cover picture and the other offered a chopped version, composing of five small squared pictures. At first, the first option seemed to be a good idea, but soon proved to be rather tricky. The chopped version was much more interesting to design.

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Facebook covers – the making of

PayLane timeline cover

Everybody (and their uncle) knows about the Facebook Timeline. On March 30th the brand profiles changed their look. Some companies embraced the Timeline earlier, which made the design job a real challenge: how to do something quite original and stay within the borders of company’s policy?

PayLane’s TimeLine – time-consuming but rewarding

We wanted something special for the PayLane’s Facebook cover. Naturally, it had to be connected with our business: credit cards, online payments… But we wanted the cover to convey more than that. We wanted to show that we are a group of people with passion for payments.

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404 / 500 – the making of

404If some of you were wondering what a graphic designer actually does at a payment processing company, now is the time to lift the shroud of mystery. Designing a 404/500 error page seems rather trivial (especially in comparison to infographics), but it proved an interesting task.

You could have seen the finished designs in one of the previous posts. I’d like to show you some of the designs that could have been… And why they didn’t make it. In other words: welcome to my sketchbook.

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Fresh face of a credit card – Visa redesigns Chase Sapphire

Chase Sapphire PreferredRecently, the owners of the Chase Sapphire Credit Cards (signed by Visa) might have been surprised, finding their new card looking slightly different than they were used to. The 16-digit number, the expiration date and Visa logo were moved to the other side, leaving just the name of the cardholder and the bank on the front.

Redesign is not an easy thing to do. If done carelessly, it may prove hazardous. One may recollect a recent redesign of the Pepsi logo – not received well by the general public. Some concepts and designs are so deeply rooted in people’s minds that even a slight change seems odd and takes quite a long time to get used to. The truth is that there should be a really good reason behind the redesign. It can be done to refresh the brand or to appeal to new markets. It may be done to differentiate oneself from the competition, to enhance usability… Or to stress a unique feature of a new product.

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What a small company can do in one year? (anniversay infographic)

One company's experience in 2011

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Credit Cards – creative ways to use your expired plastic

Credit Card RainbowCredit cards can be pretty, there’s no arguing about that. They can also become the base for a work of art, as was demonstrated by the Graphic Design Museum in Breda (the Netherlands), in 2009. The museum ordered a collage created out of different types of credit cards, gift cards and discount cards from all over the world.

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Credit Cards In Numbers

Credit cards in numbers - infographic

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