Boston Consulting Group (Digital Ventures)
·
Nov 2015 - Mar 2016
Boston Consulting Group
Visual design and motion for a conceptual future BNP Paribas mortgage application, and for LEGO Shop's order tracking, across two engagements with BCG Digital Ventures.
Role
Visual Designer
Timeline
Nov 2015 - Mar 2016
Team
Multidisciplinary teams with UX specialists
Platform
Web / Mobile / Motion
Overview
Two engagements, two very different products
BCG Digital Ventures was Boston Consulting Group's venture and product arm, working with major brands to design and build new digital businesses. It engaged me twice as a visual designer: first for BNP Paribas, then for LEGO Shop. On both projects I worked alongside UX specialists within multidisciplinary teams, with my contribution focused on visual design, screen layouts and motion.
Engaged twice
BNP Paribas and LEGO Shop
Future mortgage
Flows, a dashboard and biometric concepts for BNP Paribas
Motion concept
An animated conversational assistant, built in After Effects
Challenge
Designing for products that don't exist yet
Both engagements asked for design ahead of certainty. For BNP Paribas, the team was imagining what a future digital mortgage application might look and feel like, with ideas such as biometric identification and a conversational assistant. For LEGO Shop, the experience after purchase was being rethought while the UX direction was still evolving. In each case, the visual design had to make an unfinished idea tangible enough to judge.
How do you give an emerging concept enough visual form, and motion, for a team and client to see what it could become?
Approach
Making future concepts tangible
BNP Paribas: a future mortgage concept
This was a conceptual piece: the team explored where a digital mortgage application could go in the future, including biometric identification such as fingerprint and retinal scanning, chatbots and conversational assistance, and a clearer presentation of mortgage information. Within a small multidisciplinary team, alongside dedicated UX research and other designers, I designed assigned flows and the dashboard. The dashboard also brought in investment planning, showing how savings were spread and how contributions might grow towards a goal.
Assigned flows and the dashboard for the mortgage concept.
Left Projecting how contributions might grow towards a goal. Right The conversational assistant’s motion concept, built in After Effects in 2016.
I also created a motion concept for the conversational assistant in After Effects, using the Nodes plugin to give it an ethereal visual presence. Motion was the quickest way to show how an assistant might behave, not just how it looked, and it made the idea feel alive rather than described.
Investment planning on the dashboard: how savings were spread, in motion (video).
The tablet prototype: the dashboard and task detail, in motion (video).
LEGO Shop: orders and delivery tracking
For the second engagement, I worked with a dedicated UX designer on visual directions for LEGO Shop’s post-purchase experience: order history, order detail and delivery tracking. I sketched layouts by hand to explore structures quickly, then developed the strongest into screen designs across desktop, tablet and mobile. The designs carried LEGO’s playful personality into moments that still had to be clear: where an order was, when it would arrive, and what to do if something went wrong.
Left Hand sketches of delivery status and tracking. Right Layout explorations, kept flexible while the brief moved.
The engagement came with real constraints: there was no library of approved LEGO Shop assets, product imagery or character guidance to draw on, and the UX concept was still evolving. I developed the interaction and visual direction with provisional materials, and kept the explorations flexible so layouts and treatments could adapt as the direction changed rather than having to start again.
Left Orders and delivery status on mobile. Right Order tracking with LEGO’s personality.
Left Your orders on desktop. Right Orders across desktop and tablet.
The more complete screens brought those explorations together. Each order led with its status and estimated delivery, with a progress bar and LEGO minifigure illustration carrying the brand into the wait. Items could be tracked, cancelled or bought again from the order itself, help and delivery instructions stayed within reach, and the same structure held from mobile through tablet to desktop.
Outcome
Two concepts brought to life
Across two engagements, I gave BCG Digital Ventures' teams visual form for two very different products: flows, a dashboard and a motion concept for BNP Paribas' future mortgage application, and hand-sketched layouts developed into screen designs for LEGO Shop's order tracking.
Mortgage flows
Assigned flows and a dashboard for BNP Paribas' future application.
Assistant in motion
An After Effects concept that gave the assistant a visual character.
Orders and delivery
Order history and delivery tracking that carried LEGO's playful personality.
Sketch to screen
Hand-drawn layouts developed into detailed screens.
Reflection
Show how it behaves, not just how it looks
Concept work lives or dies on whether people can picture the product. A static screen describes an idea; a sequence in motion lets people feel it. With an idea as abstract as a conversational assistant, animation communicated in seconds what a set of screens couldn't, and I reach for motion and prototypes whenever a concept needs to be understood rather than just seen.
