Gumtree
When I started at Pollen I had the benefit of working at Gumtree 3 days a week for 2 years. In that time, I worked with the Gumtree product team and Pollen to develop the design culture internally. Through my advocacy, collaboration and effective designs I contributed to building designs role at Gumtree. Starting in a consultant-type role providing design as a service to each of the product teams, moving to an embedded approach where each Product team had an embedded designer contributing to the work .
I experienced a lot of first-hand Product knowledge working in-house with the talented folk at Gumtree. One of my core roles was to bridge the gap between marketing and product to ensure the new brand was being adhered to and that new features were marketed when appropriate.
Responsibilities
- Rebrand – Redesign
- UX Design
- UI Design
- Email Design
- Marketing collateral
Rebrand and redesign 2017
In 2017, I was involved in the rebrand of Gumtree Australia. The brand was developed by Koto Studio and, in partnership with the Gumtree Marketing team, we localised and adapted the brand. I then led the UI redesign across the entire web platform. Working closely with marketing, product, engineering and senior stakeholders we created a vibrant experience that reflected the brand Australian’s love.
Foundational Design System
As part of the redesign, we developed a foundational Design System for Gumtree. Detailing the core design elements to ensure smooth and efficient development. As the design team grew the Design System continued to evolve, I was involved in the Governance of the system and critiquing the UI to ensure it remained modern.
Design Sprint Facilitation
I love to facilitate. While working with Gumtree, I was fortunate enough to be involved in 5 Design Sprints. These sprints were facilitated by Pollen and were an adaptation of the Google Ventures 5 day Design Sprint methodology. I facilitated 2 of these sprints, guiding a team of over 20 people through the process to define, decide, design, prototype and validate solutions to current and future opportunities.
”Thanks for all your help this week, I'm really happy with the outcome. Thanks for helping keep the energy levels high. A pleasure to partner with you 🚀.
Daniel EvansFormer Head of Product at Gumtree
Marketing & Leadership team design support
Working closely with the leaders of the marketing and product team, I supported them with various initiatives to increase awareness of human-centered design and to inspire innovative thinking. Working on various projects including strategy decks, marketing persona designs, strategy posters, and monthly competitor review emails.
Pollen team
- Ross Gales – Strategy & Design Director
- Jules Batstone – Senior Producer
- Victoria Koon – Product Designer
- Hugo Vann – Senior Product Designer
- Adrian Wiggins – Experience Design Director
- Evan Bohringer – Senior Designer