Age UK
Several years' worth of digital and marketing design work to promote both the fundraising opportunities of Age UK and the services offered by Age Co.
Age UK Website Design
The Enterprises team at Age UK oversee several online gaming products that raise funds for their cause, including a digital Raffle and Lottery. These products were hosted separately across multiple domains, designed and built by disconnected providers resulting in inconsistent styling, complex management and under-performance from users.
Age UK proposed a brand new digital portal to house the gaming products and commissioned me to develop designs for it.
The marketing team were keen that the portal should break convention from Age UK's other digital properties. I saw this as an opportunity to introduce bespoke illustration.
Designs were needed for a prize-checker feature so players can confirm their ticket status after each draw - Lottery or Raffle - as well as consult a weekly leaderboard of prize winners.
Colour configurations, text styles and display conventions were all designed and calibrated for WCAG 2.0 compliance, catering to the needs of Age UK's primary audience.
Stories from service users and helpful articles from Age UK's blog featured in the portal to garner social proof, evidencing how funds raised from players go on to benefit the organisation.
I also designed the annual draw calendar to diarise upcoming draws and to clearly signify which area of Age UK's charitable work each draw's funding supports, building on the social proof strategy.
The branding challenge
The project was not without deliberation. On occasion, the motives of various invested parties at Age UK did not entirely align. There was contention around my designs either adopting the established brand standards (corporate and pragmatic) as rigorously as possible, or turning the guidelines on their head and exploring new conventions (playful and enticing).
Part of my remit was mediating all views, influencing a design that could 'bend the rules' to a degree, accommodate new graphic elements gracefully, repurpose the colour palette sympathetically, and adjust the layout grid without compromising the site's usability and familiarity.
Multiple rounds of design, feedback and round-table discussions ensured a result that best supports interests both inside and outside the organisation.
The Raffle product afforded the same opportunities to broaden the gaming portal's personality through a combination of illustration, graphic design and photography.
I designed a more complex, seasonal mechanic for the Raffle product's ticket checker since draws are held less frequently than the Lottery.
Designing a concise and intuitive user journey for the Raffle product - from ticket selection, data capture, order summary and payment collection - was probably my favourite aspect of the job.
Designs had to accommodate promotional messaging, such as player incentives with dynamic deadlines and boosted prize pools.
Age UK Online Games Artwork
I devised many illustrated assets to punctuate the products and the portal. Many of these would also feature in related email marketing and print collateral.
Age UK Gaming Marketing
Following the successful launch of Age UK's new gaming portal I was commissioned by the team to design a series of offline promotion, including in-store posters and memorabilia (such as the wipe-away ticket number fridge sticker). Several of these designs, plus the final portal website, also featured in a national TV advertisement.
AGE UK EMAIL MARKETING
After launching the gaming portal I designed and coded a large volume of device-responsive promotional emails.
Transactional emails for registration, cancellation and confirmation, stewardship, and renewal management were also needed.
I designed and built the staff e-newsletter encouraging Lottery promotion through incentivised sales leaderboards, regional winner announcements, and draw date reminders.
The Raffle product is drawn quarterly and is promoted with a seasonal theme. I design and code each of these ensuring they're fresh yet brand-adherent.
Concise and effective messaging reflected in my designs ensured this on-going programme of emails kept the Age UK audience engaged.
Promotions could be time-sensitive and/or offering bonus incentives to play, so balancing messaging was crucial in my designs.
Raffle emails rarely varied in messaging, but each would adopt a unique style convention that I had to ensure always worked well with the brand.
Like the Raffle communications, Superdraw emails would be fairly consistent in their messaging, but with unique visuals that needed to conform to the house style.
The variance in artwork meant I was free to experiment with style and presentation to degree, making each email brief enjoyable to work on.
In all, I designed, built and tested in the region of 200 email templates promoting the Age UK gaming portal and products.
Age UK Social Media Design
The perfect Profile graphic
Social media accounts for the Age UK gaming portal were opened for support and promotional purposes, and these cohere with the portal design. I mocked-up various profile picture graphics, cover graphics and feed graphics for the team to review.
The profile graphic in particular was evaluated for clarity, legibility, enticement, and recognition - a considerable challenge for such a modest circle.
Facebook cover graphics and post graphics were required to complete the social media package.
Building on the success of the aforementioned television campaign, dogs became the mascot championing the portal. I used these often in my designs from this point.
We experimented with several visual conventions, assessing audience reception to photography, graphics and illustration, and the interplay between the three.
Age Co Product Marketing
My term with Age UK extended to an engagement with Age Co, the business arm supporting the Age UK charity, to market their products on and offline.
Promotion on digital ad networks and social media is pivotal for Age Co to sell its products. The Age Co team commissioned me to design simplistic ad banners to promote their insurance products in a range of formats, styes and orientations.
Age Co Email Marketing
Following my extensive email development work for Age UK’s gaming portal, Age Co briefed their first batch of marketing emails promoting the sale of their funeral plans.
A significant part of Age UK's fundraising comes through the sale of affiliated products and hardware like stairlifts and adjustable beds - and promotional emails were a driver for those sales.
The funeral plan email series was revised and revived a number of times over the years, meticulously tweaked and tested until the messaging and design were optimised for maximum return.
An extensive, automated programme of marketing emails I created promoting the funeral plans were geared towards different segmentations of subscribers.
Emails shifted in tone and severity with each latest template in the funnel.
The Age Co team and I worked rigorously on all the email journeys we built for their subscribers and cold-outreach with notable results.
