Penguin
THE CHALLENGE
PRH's digital output was spread across lots of internal departments, each with their own requests, timelines and ideas of what "good" looked like. With 6 of the UK's best-loved publishing brands (including Penguin, Ladybird and Puffin), each speaking to a completely different audience, there was a real risk of inconsistent quality and a disjointed experience for readers moving between them. There was also no dedicated in-house digital team to own it.
MY ROLE
Digital Creative Director. I built and led a multidisciplinary team of Digital Designers, UX Designers and AV Producers from scratch, and was responsible for creative quality across every consumer-facing digital touchpoint.
BUILDING THE TEAM AND PROCESS
I hired 8 people and set up the ways of working to run the team as an efficient internal service: [e.g. a request intake process, prioritisation, design reviews, shared templates/brand guidelines]. That meant marketing, publicity and commercial teams got consistent, high-quality work without everything needing to go through me.
REDESIGNING Penguin.co.uk
The site needed to show how PRH's brands relate to each other, while still letting each one keep its own personality. I led the redesign, working closely with dev/product teams, research and stakeholders. It was a brilliant chance to really understand the audiences of three major UK brands, from parents choosing Ladybird books to Penguin's core readers.
THE RESULTS
I built a digital team that didn't exist before, and it became the go-to creative resource for brand marketing across PRH's highest-profile imprints. We gave 6 very different brands a consistent quality bar across every digital touchpoint, without flattening what made each one distinct. The redesigned Penguin.co.uk brought the brand family together in one place for the first time, making it clearer for readers how the imprints connected.
My work leading the team led to me being selected for PRH's Creative Leadership Programme in 2018, a 6-month programme for people being developed into senior creative leaders.