Essentials
Project Overview
Elevating Essentials' brand and user engagement through innovative design and personalisation.
Project Overview
Essentials Newsletters harnesses AI to personalise your news feed with content that matters to you. Instead of just showing you what's trending or popular, Essentials digs deeper. It hunts down the real gems - the trusted voices and valuable content on topics you actually care about.
They reached out with the challenge of evolving their visual identity and brand language while also conceptualising a premium service that would give users more control over their content.

Project Approach
The project began with a comprehensive discovery phase. This involved conducting stakeholder interviews to gain deep insights into Essentials' vision and goals. We complemented this with thorough competitor research, analysing trends and best practices in the AI content space. A critical component of our approach was a design audit of Essentials' existing brand. This allowed us to identify core elements worth preserving while pinpointing areas for evolution.
To ensure we always had the user in mind, we developed detailed personas representing Essentials' diverse audience of business leaders and tech enthusiasts. These personas guided our design decisions throughout the project. We then facilitated a visual direction workshop workshop with key stakeholders. This collaborative session was crucial in aligning our vision for the product with Essentials' goals, ensuring we struck the right balance between brand familiarity and visual progression.
With these insights in hand, we moved into the design phase. For the premium service, we focused on innovation. We conceptualised an interactive and immersive customisation experience, aiming to empower users in crafting their ideal newsletter. This approach went beyond simple topic selection, offering a more engaging and personalised user experience.



Project Outcome
This project wasn't without its challenges. Trying to infuse the brand experience into three distinct concepts while making them stand out from competitors was a sticking point with stakeholders. We went through a fair few ideas landing on our final three concepts.
To wrap up the project we presented back three fully prototyped experiences, which would be presented to the board for a decision on the final direction. All three concepts included the new brand direction, newsletter redesign, and premium service visions all of which got great feedback.
Next work