By the end of the year sometimes, I’ve got that thousand-mile stare going and not much left in the tank. But I sold this strategy, consulting and planning engagement in October, and I was on the hook as the agency lead to deliver it, before Christmas.

It turned out this may have been my favorite engagement of 2022 for a number of reasons:

I was the BD lead and early relationship lead
I stayed on as both a creative and strategy team lead and also a horsepower role—ripping wires, performing site and competitive analysis, writing decks and presenting and selling our work week-over-week
I really liked the clients too, which always helps

We had our goal:

But we didn’t have a bench and properly-cast teammates were tough to come by in November.

We started with the team we had, and worked through a 6-7 week process that looked like this:

Stakeholder interviews, site and competitive analysis, narrative/storytelling analysis, design principles, and a foundational system design of L1, L2 and L3 wireframes. All of the UX work was proofed across a handful of POC visual design, to ensure the work works within the Morningstar Design System. Here’s a few grabs:

Additionally, we delivered a working plan for how to move into prototyping, user testing and Detailed Design in 2023: 4 weeks prototyping and testing, followed by three, 3-week batches of Detailed Design, with three lean tests along the way.

It was a 7-week hustle, but in the end, we delivered a robust, tight, sharp and smart body of work to be proud of…and the clients were thrilled too!