THE PROBLEM
Christmas is the biggest time of year for book buying, but a lot of those books are gifts, and research showed people really struggled to choose them. Buying for someone else, especially a child or teenager whose reading you don't know well, is hard. Faced with thousands of titles, people either fell back on the bestseller table or gave up and bought something else.
MY ROLE
Digital Creative Director. I led the project from ideation through to launch: running the ideas workshop, providing UX direction, commissioning the illustrator, and keeping stakeholders and developers aligned throughout.
THE APPROACH
I ran a collaborative ideas session with people from across the business, using brainstorming and creative exercises to explore different ways of solving the gifting problem. The idea that came out of it was the Flipper: a simple, playful tool that asks two questions (who are you buying for, and what do they like?) and "flips" to a set of tailored book recommendations.
The key was keeping it quick and fun rather than feeling like a search form. Age groups and interests are chosen by tapping illustrated icons, so it works in a few seconds and even feels like part of the gift-giving experience. I brought in an illustrator to create a visual style that felt warm and a bit cheeky, then worked closely with developers to make sure the interaction stayed light and fast. We also produced a short promotional video to drive people to the tool over the Christmas campaign.
THE RESULTS
The Flipper launched as part of Penguin's Christmas campaign, giving readers a new way to discover books beyond the bestseller lists and was adapted for other gifting moments like Father's Day.
THE LEARNING
Not every user problem needs a complex solution. Choosing a gift is stressful, so the design's job was to make it feel easy, and a bit of playfulness went a long way in turning a chore into something people actually enjoyed.
