Tag Archives: design

Building the TLA Brand

The Challenge

In Late 2019 our team was challenged to rebrand The Lead Agency (TLA), to coincide with its 18th birthday, in February 2020. After years of growth and increasing work on the product base, TLA needed a brand that represented the evolution of our ecosystem and a fresh visual language. The goal was to reflect the team and the TLA spirit within a modern brand identity.

“We spent a lot of time talking to team members who had seen the brand evolve from a small business to a large corporation. It was important that we understood the journey of the brand, so we could put forward concepts that were reflective of a proud past, but strategies that looked towards a brighter future.” 

Jonny Kimber, Lead UX/UI Designer of TLA

The Process

The design team ran a double diamond process to deliver the overall brief. This four-step process (discover, define, design, deliver) is a problem-solving framework used by teams across the world to reach a desired solution. The team kicked off with a discovery phase — crucial to allow the team time to process the brief and provide purpose and direction. The intensive research period included staff surveys, stakeholder interviews and workshops to understand existing assets.

In the second stage of the double diamond process – the definition phase – consisted of filtering through the information received from the discovery phase and elaborating on this, pulling data apart and synthesising information. This crystallised direction for the team and gave intent to deliver the brief whilst finalising mission, vision, values and more.

The third phase of the project – the design phase – started with hand-drawn concepts informed by the entire journey so far. The designs were kept simple until strong ideas started to emerge, which is when the team starting delivering computer concepts in colour and detail. The only rule at this stage was ‘No idea is a bad idea’. The final deliverable at this stage was a presentation to senior stakeholders to choose the new brand identity.

Results

The final stage was the delivery phase and with a brand identity chosen, the team started to roll out the new visual language to print and digital touch-points, along with communicating the new vision to the rest of the business. This is where the fun really starts, as care needs to be taken to ensure the team launches the best possible version of the concept and in a timely manner. Elements covered are touchpoints – website, email signatures and customer-facing collateral.

“The team are thrilled with the new brand and the past 4 months has been such a journey for us. We’ve had many late nights, lots of coffee-runs and a lot of hard decisions to make but they’ve been offset by those amazing ‘a-ha moments’ that designers live for… It has all been worth it! We now have a modern brand that does justice to our 18 years in the automotive space. This truly is the start of a new chapter for TLA.”

Jonny Kimber, Lead UX/UI Designer of TLA

My Design Internship with TLA – Adam Hodkinson

Over the past six months, we were delighted to be joined by Adam Hodkinson on a design internship. Here’s what he had to say about his experience and learnings from TLA.

What made you apply for TLA?

After graduating from The University of Salford I struggled to break into the industry, so I decided to reach out to several businesses about potential internships. This is when I came across the opportunity here at TLA.

I was hoping for an internship which would allow me to develop my skills, knowledge and improve on my portfolio. TLA has turned out to be the best possible place for me to end up – giving me the opportunity to explore a potential career path and get a feel for what the industry is like.

What was the most interesting piece of work you had done?

Now that I’ve come to the end of my internship, I’ve gathered several portfolio pieces where I’ve really outdone myself! If I had to choose one, it would be the future leaders programme. You can find more about my work in my full Portfolio here.

Key things you have learnt in your six months here?

Over the past 6 months, I’ve gathered so much knowledge and improved on my skills around branding and identity, graphics, logo design, print, typography and illustration with additional experience in UI Design.

How have you developed personally during your internship?

My core strengths: work ethic, keen eye for detail, communication, creativity and time management have improved massively. I’ve met some amazing people, I’ve gained amazing experience and I have a top notch portfolio – I hold TLA and the design team responsible for relighting my passion for design.

So what’s next?

I hope to move onto a similar role or maybe experiment with different pathways, however UI Design is my number one priority.

If you’ve got a question for the team or want to know more about an internship here at TLA, why not get in touch?

Five minutes with… TLA Lead UX/UI Designer Jonny Kimber

As part of this series of Q&As we have Jonny Kimber, who joined our TLA team in August last year as our Lead UX/UI Designer. Here he gives an insight into his time at The Lead Agency so far…

What is the main function of the UX & Design department at TLA?

There’s a real mix regarding the projects we get to work on as good UX can be applied to anything! My role is looking at the TLA ecosystem and ensuring our digital touch points are working as hard as possible for our users from landing page campaigns to engaging widgets.

What have been your biggest projects from the first half of 2019?

The biggest project of the first half of 2019 has definitely been the revamp of Ask A Price landing pages. We already had a great user flow, but we challenged the entire team with a bunch more requirements to the existing user flow. The results led to a large uplift in conversion, better standards across the board and a near-perfect coded experience to the original designs. It’s definitely set the bar for how we deliver large-scale briefs. Another really great project to note was our first global campaign overseas for Audi Canada, definitely an incredible achievement for us!

What area of your work are you most passionate about and why?

Throughout my career I’ve been lucky to be trained in all areas of design. I started in the branding industry gaining confidence and enhancing how I delivered creative briefs, then moved towards digital work as a UI designer. I then took the jump to UX design to ensure the digital projects I was delivering had the user at the centre of the process. This has taught me that true innovation comes from three things, desirability, feasibility and viability. As long as the user is at the heart of my decisions, I’m on the right track.

What are your predictions for your profession and/or industry?

UX in general has had a really good reception and has really been recognised as a catalyst for business success. I constantly talk about the ROI of UX design and how it benefits businesses across the board from more engaging products for the user but also less resource burden on development teams amongst a multitude of other things. I think we will see the continuation of this success and an increased split of UX facing roles such as UX writers and UX researchers. These roles are fairly standard within the world of design but not realistically adopted by small/medium-sized businesses.

How will they impact the way we do things at TLA?

A lot more work around the entire journey of a customer, enhanced touch points across the board (digital and non-digital) and a greater emphasis on adding colour and context to the data we ascertain.

Where do you get your inspiration? Are there any books, blogs or websites you would recommend?

I’m a member of the IDF (The Interaction Design Foundation) which is a great place to up-skill UX skills, meet up with the fellow UX community and share my opinions on current projects in the digital industry across the world. It truly is an incredible site that can benefit any designer or company in general. I also read design blogs (Invision Blog, design related content on Medium) and I have a Dribbble profile to showcase some of my more visual work. I also mentor a designer in New York called Dongwei, he’s a really great guy so it’s awesome hearing about the projects he has on and talking UX processes with him.

What do you enjoy most about working at TLA?

The projects for sure – they keep me busy, challenge me and allow me to learn with every single project produced. There’s a huge focus on testing and gaining learnings from those tests so a project is never really complete. Second to this, the team I work with are a pretty inspiring bunch! Whether it’s the marketing department or the development teams, I’m constantly learning new ways to execute projects, deliver better briefs and afterwards share a drink with a good group of people. I can honestly say we all reach the finish line at the same time, it’s one of the best teams I’ve ever worked for.

How would you summarise TLA’s culture in three words?

Fast-paced, Talented, Opportunity.

Finally, what advice would you give to someone just starting out in the UX or design industry?

Never stop learning, always be accountable for a project you’re a part of, always strive for innovation and don’t worry about having different ideas to bring to the table.

If you’ve got a question for the TLA team or want to know more about what makes us tick, why not get in touch?

Justin Thorne joins TLA to lead digital team

As we continue to extend reach within each of our verticals and improve the efficiency of our lead generation processes, we have appointed Justin Thorne as our new head of digital.

Justin (left) has joined us from neuromarketing company Lab, where he had spent three years and was responsible for leading its performance marketing teams. Prior to that role, he held senior marketing positions at Kenshoo and SmartFocus.

At TLA, Thorne will lead a team of digital channel specialists, UX designers and CRO specialists in creating intent and technology-led, lead generation campaigns.

His focus will be on developing strategies that help us connect with and nurture in-market consumers within automotive, property and education.

Justin’s arrival follows the appointment of Antony Neill as performance manager, who joined us from a technology business within the Bibby Line Group earlier this year.

Commenting on their arrivals, TLA’s CEO Anton Hanley said: “We continuously look for ways to improve the services we provide to clients and consumers, which includes recruiting people who can bring something special to our team. Justin and Antony have a wealth of relevant experience in marketing roles; but more importantly, they have the skills, enthusiasm and ideas to implement positive change within the business.

“Justin will help us extend our market reach, so that we connect with more of our clients’ potential customers at different stages of their buying journey; while Antony will drive performance improvements across each stage of our process to ensure the leads we provide are of the highest quality.”

Our growth is set to continue with a number of other exciting vacancies now live within our careers section. 

Life in tech – Charlotte Smith, junior designer

Following our first Life in Tech Q&A last week, we’ve asked TLA junior designer Charlotte Smith to tell us about her fledgling career in technology.

What was your route into the industry?

I finished my college A-levels and started applying for apprenticeships. The careers advice people who worked in the college helped me find connections. I was introduced to the Liverpool Chamber Training who were able to arrange an interview with The Lead Agency. I joined as a digital apprentice and, after receiving my qualification, was offered a permanent position to join the design and UX team.

Charlotte at TLA

What do you do day-to-day at TLA?

My job varies on a day-to-day basis. One day I’m designing a set of icons for The Study Network (our higher education platform) and the next I’m mocking up landing page wireframes which show the basic layout of how a page will work. I also work closely with the content and marketing team, creating a range of graphics to support their campaigns.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

I love the fact I get to be creative every day. I enjoy the creative freedom I get when I’m assigned any sort of task whether it’s a landing page, ad design or a graphic for the social channels.

I recently attended a great conference called UX Cubed, which took place at Shop Direct’s offices. There was a lot of interesting talks given on the day about user experience within different industries. Events like this are great for building my knowledge and providing ideas I can apply day-to-day.

What is your proudest professional achievement to date?

Prior to joining The Lead Agency, I designed a responsive website from scratch – MyPrizeDraws. This included research, wireframing, image sourcing and icon, logo and brand design. I was really proud of how it turned out although looking back I can definitely spot areas where I could improve the design!

What are you passionate about?

I’m passionate about exploring design trends and how these things evolve throughout the industry. I’m especially interested to see how virtual reality transforms the way we look at web design and design as a whole.

Fancy joining Charlotte at The Lead Agency? Check out the latest TLA vacancies.

TLA makes head of talent appointment

As you may have noticed from our recent posts and social media activity, this is an exciting period of growth for the agency.

We are recruiting heavily in Liverpool and London and expect to extend our team further over the coming months.

To fulfil our long-term aspirations, we’ve appointed our very own head of talent with the arrival of Michael Fitzsimmons from Manchester-based company Jambo. He is tasked with leading the agency’s in-house recruitment, covering roles across digital marketing, .net development, design and beyond.

He brings with him a wealth of experience in digital recruitment, hiring for roles in Manchester, Liverpool and London over the last few years. He’ll work with each of our department heads as well as the board of directors to identify the right people to enhance our offering.

Strengthening the team

Commenting on the opportunity, Michael said: “I was immediately struck by the ambition and plans of the company. The Lead Agency has earned a reputation for providing an exceptional level of service for its clients, which is a testament to the quality of the team in place. I’m excited by the challenge of strengthening that team with people who have something special to offer and who are a great fit for the culture of the agency.”

In addition to Michael, we are delighted to welcome Sabina Charles to the TLA team to take on the role of executive assistant to our board of directors. Sabina has held a number of similar roles and will play an important role in supporting the smooth running of the business as we continue to grow.

If you’d like to be part of our team, head over to the TLA careers page.

 

TLA unveils new site for Car Keys

We are thrilled to announce the launch of the new Car Keys website, which has been redeveloped and designed to offer a faster, mobile-friendly experience for its users.

Car Keys is our online automotive publication dedicated to people researching and buying a new car. It helps thousands of people to explore their options and easily identify the vehicles that best meet their needs.

With its user base growing quickly, we undertook a full review and in-depth research to plan a complete rebuild and redesign of the website. The end result is a faster, user-friendly experience optimised for all device types – particularly mobile, which is the source of more than half of all traffic to the platform.

Car Keys’ acting editor Ryan McElroy said: “Our new site is now multi-device friendly, with bespoke interfaces designed specifically for use on mobile and tablet, as well as on desktop. It is faster to load than ever before and features a much-improved user journey, so users will find easier to access all of our great features.

“It’s better looking too, with a complete redesign that more effectively incorporates integrated images and videos, so you can enjoy our content across all forms of media in one easy to navigate destination.”

Consumers with intent

Car Keys generates thousands of leads, which are subsequently nurtured by the TLA team. Our focus on finding real consumers – those with intent to buy – has helped us create growth opportunities for automotive manufacturers such as BMW, Mini, Volvo, Land Rover, Jaguar and Škoda.

Tom White, who joined TLA as automotive managing director earlier this year, commented: “Car Keys is an increasingly recognised consumer brand that’s rapidly growing its audience of car buyers and enthusiasts. It provides impartial information and advice so that people are able to make more informed and confident decisions. We’re all about making it easier for consumers to make the right decision on their next new car, and then connecting them with the best place to test drive and buy.”

For more information about our automotive offering, drop us a line.

Design It; Build It Conference – Edinburgh

We’re feeling energised and inspired after two days at the international web design and development conference, Design It; Build It.

The event, held at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, featured fantastic talks by experts from innovative brands and organisations including Minecraft, Uber, IBM, AirBnB, RBS, MacMillan Cancer Support and the BBC.

The conference focused on the importance of taking creative risks to produce the best work. Among our highlights were designer and technologist Joshua Davis discussing the role that risk can play in bringing code together with creativity to create art and The Secret Life of Comedy speaking about the need to take risks when creating for the web to make sure things look different.

Other stand outs were designer and photographer Mike Kus discussing what it’s like to be the black sheep and standing out from the crowd; Chris Hammond from IBM sharing how they used human centred design to build something that bettered the world; and the BBC’s David Bailey explaining how their GEL (global experience language) is changing the way they innovate and design.

“Innovation of any kind requires risk, experimentation and occasionally failure.”

The key takeaway from the event was that innovation of any kind requires risk, experimentation and occasionally failure. It revealed that organisations that encourage risk – not just from designers but from all areas of the business – are those able to lead, innovate and succeed.