±0.001FReal estate financing · Toronto
Built from
the first floor up.
- Client
- FirStone Capital · 启石资本
- Business
- Financing for developers and investors, Canada-wide
- Languages
- English · 中文
- Year
- 2026
The project
FirStone Capital arranges financing for developers and real estate investors across Canada, from the first analysis to funding. I started from the name. Two weeks later the firm had a brand, a 36-page guide, a bilingual website that keeps its own numbers current, and a client who changes that website by asking an AI.
- Brand idea & Chinese name (启石资本)
- The 1F logo, drawn as vectors
- Logo guidelines, 36 pages
- Logo package: screen, print, foil, icons
- Bilingual website (EN · 中文)
- Live Bank of Canada yields
- AI editing set-up & training
1FThe name
Fir means first.
FirStone is the first stone: the one a deal starts from. So the F is drawn as a 1 with two bars, a gold 1 on bluestone. Look again and it reads 1F, the first floor, which suits a firm that finances buildings. The Chinese name says the same thing: 启石资本, 启 as in to open, to begin.
2FTaste
AI drew a lot. Most of it went.
With AI I could put more than a dozen directions in front of the client in a week, each drawn as real vectors, not pictures. Choosing was the work. Anyone can use AI; what it takes is an eye.
- DroppedToo close to another firm’s mark.
- DroppedRead as a pause button in a cold test.
- DroppedRead as a broken box.
- KeptThe 1F: it says the name at a glance, and still reads at 16 pixels.
3FThe guide
One logo, used the same way everywhere.
The guide runs 36 pages: the name, the construction, colour versions, the gold gradient (on the 1 only), a gold stroke beside every headline, the Chinese name, documents, website, signage and print. The logo package covers screen, print, foil and favicons, in English, Simplified and Traditional Chinese.
4FThe website
Floors, not sections.
The site reads like the buildings it finances. The ground line says ±0.00 1F, and every section after it is a floor: 2F, 3F, 4F. A borrower starts at their stage (acquire, build, bridge, stabilize or hold), and the guides explain the hard parts, like how MLI Select points are earned. Every page is in English and Chinese.
5FLive data
The rates update themselves.
Insured multi-residential loans are priced off Government of Canada bond yields, so the site shows them: along the top of every page, and as a chart. Twice each business day it reads the yields the Bank of Canada publishes, and keeps the last good figures if the feed is late. Nobody has to remember to update a number.
6FEditing with AI
Change it by asking.
All the site’s words, in both languages, live in one place. So I taught the client to change the site the way she’d brief me: write what she wants, in Chinese or English, let the AI make the change in both languages, look over the page, then publish. A new deal, a line about a service, a corrected figure: minutes, not a ticket to a developer and a week’s wait.
Illustration
Add a deal to Transactions: a mid-rise rental in Ontario, construction loan. Both languages.
Done, on the English and Chinese pages both. Here’s the page to check; say the word and it goes live.Transactions +1EN ✓中文 ✓
- Same day, not next week.
- Both languages change together.
- If she can say it, she can change it.
7FTraining
Taught on her own work.
Twice a week, two hours at a time, we worked through her real work together. Each session ended with something she now does herself.
- 01Setting up her own AI tools
- 02Researching recent sales and competing listings for a client
- 03Putting the new brand on her own documents
- 04A financing laid out in four steps: documents, construction financing, draws, completion and take-out