A new creative era for tb.lx’s website
A look into what we learned from building a new website
Have you ever thought about the brands that stay in your mind and why they have so much impact? Or how they always seem to know how to hit the right tone to keep you invested?
Often times, it is because they created a user experience and brand, designed with you in mind. Doing so, requires creativity of course, but so much more than just that. To successfully launch a creative identity or brand experience, it takes research.
We went through this process ourselves recently when we built our new website. The main takeaways for us (that we hope you can learn from) were: to use focus groups to drive value and understanding; to conduct research, even if it seems counterintuitive; to let creativity flow and use it as it comes along; and to be as collaborative as can be (more heads are better than one).
Curious to learn more about this process, from the ground up? Then read on to learn how our Strategic Brand Communications Expert, Saskia Loja, approached the challenge in an equally concepts and insights-driven way.
Learning more about the change
1. Where did the idea come from to build a new website?
Saskia Loja: When tb.lx first opened its doors in 2018, it was on a growth and development path, to set itself up on a meaningful journey. To share this vision and our work publicly, we had a website built internally by our colleagues. It was well-aligned with where we were at that point, and gave visitors to our site, a taste of what was to come. We really appreciate all of the efforts our colleagues made to start this journey from scratch.
But, as tb.lx continued to grow more and more, we wanted our website to match our new reality and values, as well as providing a more nuanced user experience. To achieve this, there were a couple of challenges we needed to solve. First and foremost, the previous version of our website did not have updated information about what tb.lx does and how we work, failing to provide potential candidates and our stakeholders enough information about us, and thus, the opportunity to truly bond with tb.lx.
In addition, our site experience was not the most user friendly. Prior to the new website, visitors to our site couldn’t scroll on the home page. Instead, they were immediately forced to make a click-decision, about what they wanted to read or know more about, which blocked the interaction flow with our page.
2. What were the biggest changes you wanted to make on the new site and why?
Saskia Loja: Based on the reasons why we changed the website in the first place, there were two big changes we wanted to implement.
The first, was creating a free flow scroll experience on the website, to solve the challenge of users needing to make quick decisions to click right away on the pages of the site they wanted to visit first. Resolving this issue, would allow them to learn more about who tb.lx is, what we are motivated by, and what we do, without having to sift through documentation, after making their first click.
The second change we wanted to make, was increasing the amount of available information and its granularity, on the website (we are still looking to add more). Our goal in doing so, was for our website visitors to gain clarity and a detailed explanation of our business, our values, and our work setup.
Implementing both changes (more information and a free-flowing scroll dynamic) required controlling how long the scroll experience would be for users, so that our page wasn’t an endless scroll, as this can be very tiring. To combat this, I designed a short path and long path for the website.
3. Question: How did you go about doing the actual change? What was the underlying strategy/plan?
Saskia Loja: Knowing that we wanted to make two major changes to our website, I designed a strategy that was equal parts research based and conceptual, to be sure the changes we would make would be informed by data, and aligned with various colleagues’ needs.
To begin the process, I started by collecting the topics we wanted to include on the site and organized them in specific website sections with a whiteboard tool, where I drafted out the design layout. In doing so, I recognized that the pages were becoming long and tricky to follow, which made me realize that we could have 2 different paths to control the website flow. This resulted in the creation of the short path and long path for the website. The short path was designed for the top of the funnel audience. It’s the essential tb.lx short story, as if you’re reading the newspaper headlines — you can quickly flow through all the sections and get a relatively good perspective of who we are at tb.lx. The long path is designed with a mid-funnel audience in mind. This is a more curious public, that needs more in-depth information and perspective on tb.lx, let’s say to ace an interview at tb.lx or decide whether we’re a good business partner.
In parallel, I started setting up research opportunities to create a look and feel for the site, that matched the use cases our colleagues would experience, in engaging with it. One of these, was creating a mood board with visual references for the design identity of our site (and eventually the brand). The other, was the focus group sessions I conducted, to get a 360º view on what we needed our website to be.
To form these focus groups, we selected representatives from different areas of tb.lx and dug deep into their insights, needs, and pains with the website at the time, from hiring to onboarding, leadership, engineering and product. Together, we reviewed the aesthetics, content, and even copywriting with the focus group to make sure our messaging and positioning was spot on. We arrived at a result that worked for everyone and had a game-changing dynamic along the way, with a lot of discussion and engagement from everyone involved.
In parallel, to support the physical development of the site, I researched design teams that could partner with us. I met all 12 of them and discussed possible options and budgets, until we eventually selected Loba as our partner for this project. After selecting them, we tasked them with bringing the project to life. While they were working on the mockup pages in Figma, we worked on fine tuning the content and copywriting, so that everything would be ready to go, for the production phase of the new site.
4. What was the biggest challenge you faced in building the new website? Why?
Saskia Loja: There were a few challenges we faced while building the new website. Some of these were due to the specific changes we wanted to implement, and others due to the logistics needed to make a change of this caliber.
In terms of the content we wanted to include, we needed to be careful to balance the level of information we included so that it was readable, and not overwhelming for our audience. To solve this, we created the dual-flow experience.
Related to logistics, a second challenge we experienced was choosing the right partner for the job. To ensure that we included diverse perspectives with a global impact, while being mindful of our budget, I researched and contacted agencies from all over the world. While doing so, I had two key questions on my mind: How much is too much when you want a great result? And how cheap is suspiciously cheap? In making these contacts, several partners stood out, but eventually fell out of the process for different reasons.
I remember two international agencies we ended up not working with — one which was amazing but unfortunately outside our budget, and another niche studio that unfortunately couldn’t follow through. Through challenges like these and after a global search, we ended up with our amazing partner, Loba, who was just the right fit and close by at home in Portugal. They were the ideal blend of being open to our ideas and regular feedback, while also being close collaborators, they truly became an extension of our team.
As we entered this new phase of development with Loba, we really saw it as an opportunity to build on the strong foundation created by our coworkers with our original website, and as a way to create a new experience, that was an extension of the brand legacy they began for us.
5. Did building the new website inspire a new branding journey for tb.lx? How, and why?
Saskia Loja: Absolutely! Previously, tb.lx only had the logo and a couple of brand colors. Through the new website development process, which included research, creating a mood board and brand-new website design, we were inspired to increase the complexity of our branding, giving it a very light, dynamic, and fresh feel. Our new website ended up resonating more and speaking more loudly than the design style we were using at the time. Therefore, how could we not make the effort to shift toward a more genuine representation of our brand, our work, our tblxers, and community?
The shift toward our new brand was gradual but quite natural. We slowly started to incorporate more of the new visual elements into our social media designs (more on this below). Alongside this effort, we also started simplifying our design style, and merging into one single, seamless voice– that you now see across our social accounts, articles, and all external communications.
Internally, we also started adopting these elements to punctuate our documentation, and update our presentation templates, to deepen our brand experience and the resulting connection with our internal stakeholders.
This was a very interesting process, where with Loba’s guidance, our mood board became our reality. We adopted a very minimal design with key elements: the green shade, the white lines, the font and the icons — that simultaneously don’t overpower our logo, they complement it.
6. What were your key takeaways from building the new website?
Saskia Loja: I would say I learned more about what the key components of a successful creative launch, are. These are:
·Use focus groups to your advantage — Without the focus group our result could’ve been visually appealing, but would it actually address our team’s pain points and needs?
· Do your research — Without research and references you’re stuck with what you know — I spend a lot of time on research for any project I work on. It’s essential for me to find inspiration, blend, twist, adapt and re-imagine what’s out there. It helps me build a new reality for whatever I have my hands on.
· Leverage creativity, however, and whenever it comes along — Without creativity, research would just be a round of copying and pasting insights, without interpreting them further. Creativity allows you to combine different insights and achieve new results. I’ve found that creative work takes some “empty” time, where your mind finds new connections between unknown elements. You can’t force it to work; if you do, you’ll drown it. It’s cliché, but there’s a suddenly-social-media-popular quote by Austin Kleon, that explains this perfectively, “Creative people need time to sit around and do nothing.” In these moments, it might feel like you’re not doing anything, but in reality your mind is at work, building the connections you need to make, in the background, offstage.
· Collaboration is key — Without collaboration you’ll never get as far. You can have the most brilliant minds working on their own, but eventually you will reach a stopping point. However, if you put a team together, you’ll be multiplying each colleague’s possibilities, potential, and creativity. We all add uniqueness to a project, we just need to master collaborating and working with other people.
7. What is your next dream project for tb.lx in the field of communications?
Saskia Loja: I want to bring the tb.lx brand experience to the next level. Our audience focus can change with new priorities and evolution, creating new opportunities to explore our brand in its full capacity. When I started working on the website, our main focus was talent attraction. Now, we are more focused on showcasing our experience and expertise in building digital products that scale globally. A lot goes into developing a 360º brand, including minimizing your strategic branding and storytelling blind spots, which is an active exercise my colleagues and I take on together, and always learn a lot from. I can’t wait to see how the tb.lx brand morphs and evolves in one, two, or even five years from now.
This interview was conducted by Andrea Leiras, Social Media and Employer Branding Expert @ tb.lx 🚛🌿 with Saskia Loja, Strategic Brand Communications Specialist @ tb.lx 🚛🌿.
