THANKS
A TON
Role
Product Designer
Art Director
Project duration
April 2021 - March 2023
Responsibilities
Leading workshops for brand discovery from the beginning of company's founding
Concept mapping and designing visual representations of production pipelines, carbon removal methods, and company’s place in ecosystem.
Collaboratively iterating on user flows, wireframes, and prototypes with founders and engineer.
Art direction and visual design of brand assets, website assets, and over 200 e-cards.
Sourcing, onboarding, and managing freelance illustrators for e-card production.
Background
Thanks a Ton is a B2C and B2B platform in the carbon removal gifting space. Users can send digital cards along with a chosen amount of removed CO2 from vetted, high quality carbon removal partners.
Approach
Brand discovery sessions
Art direction
Concept mapping sessions
Wireframing and prototyping
User flows
Visual design iteration
Brand Discovery
Lead team through four initial phases of branding discovery over the course of four days. The founders were encouraged to think in-depth about the concept and called upon to decide on the design’s direction during each session.
A year after our first brand discovery workshops, we revisited the process to update Thanks a Ton’s brand colors and type to coincide with the most recent website rebuild.
Concept Mapping
Over the course of three days I lead the team through a concept mapping workshop to help us understand how Thanks a Ton fits into the CDR ecosystem along with its partners.
Knowing how we fit into the carbon cycle was critical so that we could find clear and succinct ways of communicating our mission to the user going forward.
Thanks a Ton Ecosystem
Towards the end, a clear map emerged that we have been able to use with new hires as well as a foundation for messaging across our site and beyond on social media.
Towards the end, a clear map emerged that we have been able to use with new hires as well as a foundation for messaging across our site and beyond on social media.
Carbon Removal Gifting Visualization
The concept map also allowed us to create a visual representation that illustrates Thanks a Ton’s place in the CDR economy.
Card Production Pipeline
Having the entire team try and reach consensus was too much of a bottleneck. Our solution was to map out the production pipeline and determine key decision points. The end result was a streamlined process with fewer cooks in the kitchen and a more concrete set of expectations for everyone.
Starting the Design
Landing Page
I started with exploratory sketches to try various permutations of the layout. In this process I found that the design became more effective with greater simplicity. This lead me to choose a more concise layout while incorporating the retro aesthetic the founders asked for.
For the temporary landing page, a quick brainstorming session allowed us to narrow down one design that had the fun and cheeky elements the founders wanted.
Building their email list ahead of the MVP launch was the primary objective.
User Flows
For the temporary landing page, a quick brainstorming session allowed us to narrow down one design that had the fun and cheeky elements the founders wanted.
Building their email list ahead of the MVP launch was the primary objective.
Website Design
In keeping with the brand identity, the initial website design emphasized CTAs with a retro-nostalgic vibe.
The big question in carbon removal is always one of how much do you educate the user without risking information overload.
With this layout as as starting point, each section then underwent between 5 - 10 iterations.
The ambition was to deliver the concept of carbon removal gifting in a fun and easy to understand way.
Many iteration workshops later, the infographic accomplished this goal for our founders.
Initial user feedback from a small group of 6 suggested that we were on the right track.
Checkout Flow
How the user moved through product selection and checkout were a critical component of the MVP. Although the product selection page was eliminated in the MVP, but the flow I created informed what we had at launch.
Recipient Flow
Another critical aspect of the product was the card receiver’s experience. I developed an animated card opening sequence to give the user a sense of a special experience. This did not make it into the MVP, but remains a suspect of discussion for the team.
The Pivot
Much to our surprise, when the first in-progress build was revealed it seemed worlds apart from the design we had aligned on as a team.
Now that I had new and concrete feasability constraints, I took them into account while reworking the homepage.
The Lesson
I took from this how critical consistent and open lines of communication are. Not only between myself and the engineer but also the three founders. We simply couldn't afford to silo ourselves on a team this small with the MVP on the line.
Art Direction
Managing Freelancers
Over the course of about nine months I worked with three artists to design sets of digital cards, each specific to one of the carbon removal methods Thanks a Ton offers.
Visual Design
I created dozens of simple occasion cards (birthday, congratulations, thank you, etc) to expand our card inventory. The feedback we received indicated that these were the most requested from our users.
Takeaways
Project Trajectory
As the desire to build outweighed the experience of our team, the decision to move forward with design and asset creation was made early on.
While we acknowledged that more research was needed, the belief that data would come in once the MVP was launched drove the thinking behind these decisions.
Outcomes
In loosing our only engineer, we were left without access to the website, analytics, and content. It was a humbling experience that we quickly learned from.
Important lessons we learned from the experience inlcude:
Siloed roles yield unexpected results
Lack of communication results in lack of alignment
Reliance on non-redundant roles can lead to paralysis
