A new brand from another agency, turned into a design system the web team could own

Client: Three Ireland
Agency: Each&Other
Years: 2021–2022
My role: Senior UX & Visual Designer, Creative Direction & Client Management

The brief

Re-imagine the customer experience across web touch points to bring in refreshed brand assets, optimise for digital and redefine user flows. Manage the competing priorities of a wide group of internal stakeholders while advocating for the needs of the user in every design decision.

I delivered designs for every page of the site apart from the checkout flow. The shop front and product pages were part of it.

DeliveredResponsive wireframes, updated digital brand guidelines, refreshed UI components, high-fidelity designs, interaction prototypes, creative oversight and CMS content design.

Team at Each&Other and partners

Principal UX & content strategy: Brian Herron
UX research & design: Billy Fitzgerald
Project management: Hagan Bolger
Digital design & project management: Three Digital team
Branding: Boys+Girls
Development: NTT Data

How I approached it

Questions we started with

How does a brand created by another agency work as a digital system?
Which existing components still earn their place?
How do modules hold up when content length changes from page to page?

Decisions I influenced

Acted as the bridge between the external branding agency and Three’s internal digital teams.
Overhauled the design system, removing redundant elements and integrating the new brand assets.
Shaped core user journeys to onboard customers intuitively.
Led the visual design across core website journeys.
Designed flexible CMS modules that adapt to different amounts of content.
Built motion prototypes to show how the brand behaves on screen.

Challenges

Translating a brand built outside the team into components developers could build.
Keeping the system lean while the refresh added new assets.
Managing and prioritising inputs from several internal stakeholder teams and multiple external project partners.

What I learned

Design principles agreed up front keep business and user goals in view for every decision after.