Conversion Kings
This page is a brief look into my time at Conversion Kings, and the design department and brand evolution we achieved while I was Head of Design.
Leadership
UX/UI Design
Customer Research
AI
Culture
Strategy
AB Testing
2026
Foundations for successful AI workstreams
Always start with SOSTAC
SOSTAC is a simple planning framework that can be applied to almost any situation in life, work or personal!
Situation: Where are we now?
Ojective: Where do we want to be?
Strategy: How do we get there?
Tactics: How exactly do we get there?
Actions: What is our plan?
Control: Did we get there?
The Situation & Objective
The AI landscape is evolving rapidly, with new tools such as Claude Code and Stitch continuously reshaping how we approach design. It’s clear these technologies are fundamentally changing the way we work, making it important to adapt our processes accordingly.
Our objective for design at CK is to integrate AI in a meaningful way—using it to streamline repetitive tasks and reduce project costs for clients, while freeing up designers to focus on the more enjoyable strategic and creative aspects of their work.
Weekly AI Show & Tell
The Actions & Control
These initiatives began in February, with a plan to implement significant process changes by the end of Q4 2025/26.
Currently, our design & research teams are using AI platforms daily to complete tasks.
In research, we are using Notebook LM & Claude Code to:
Create low fidelities
Create digital versions of tactics
In design, we are using Claude Design & Stitch to:
Create low fidelities
Generate & amend images
Summary
When I started at CK, it was clear the brand needed a more modern and polished presence. The existing website lacked credibility and suffered from structural issues, with key content either missing or buried too deeply to be effective. In addition, several foundational brand and operational documents were not in place, creating unnecessary friction across the business.
Website
The Conversion Kings website redesign was an evolution of the brand rather than a revolution, modernising the visual language while maintaining brand recognition. A key focus was also developing a new information architecture that brought all services together in a clearer, more intuitive structure.
As with many agency-side projects, this one took significantly longer than our client work—largely due to the classic challenge of self-care at agencies: looking after your own website always sits just below “urgent client deadline” on the priority list (despite best intentions).
The result is a polished, thoughtfully crafted website that better reflects the quality and capability of the agency.
Socials
The refreshed UI and branding also created an opportunity to strengthen our online social presence. Alongside creating social media templates, I helped develop a structured social content plan to ensure our output felt consistent, intentional, and aligned with the new brand direction.
This included incorporating persuasion principles into content strategy to improve engagement, as well as introducing regular team update posts to showcase internal work, progress, and culture.
Together, these changes helped create a more cohesive and active social presence that better reflected the quality of the agency’s work.
Brand Guidelines & Media Center
To support the updated UI and branding, the team also developed comprehensive brand guidelines and a media center to ensure consistent application across all internal and external touchpoints.
The guidelines provided clear direction on visual identity, tone of voice, and component usage, making it easier for teams to maintain consistency at scale.
The media center sat on our website and contained ready-to-use assets for marketing partnerships, helping ensure the brand was represented accurately and cohesively across all platforms while also saving time sharing assets repetitively.
Google Slides Presentation Template
Creating a Conversion Kings presentation template in Google Slides enabled colleagues to produce polished, consistent presentations across the business. Containing 70 slides, it had a slide template for all content.
It also reduced design time spent on internal requests, as team members were now equipped to build presentations that previously required design support for refinement.
Summary
Throughout my time at Conversion Kings, I have spearheaded many team self improvement initiatives as well as drive collaboration between teams. These are four of the most significant.
360 Feedback
Performance reviews are conducted every six months across the business, assessing individuals against role-specific criteria and identifying areas for improvement.
However, this feedback was limited to the manager’s perspective, with no input from peers.
To address this, I introduced a 360 feedback form and implemented a process to incorporate peer feedback into performance reviews across the business.
Team members value receiving anonymous feedback from colleagues—both positive and constructive—while managers are able to support their assessments with broader, more balanced input, making improvement discussions more objective.
Personal Development Plans
Once the six-monthly performance reviews were completed, the goals set were often not revisited.
To address this, I introduced a personal development plan that was reviewed during each 1:1 with team members. This plan translated performance review goals into clear, actionable steps, helping ensure consistent progress and accountability. Team members benefited from ongoing development, which boosted motivation and strengthened their contribution to the team.
After successfully implementing this within my own team, I presented the approach to other team leaders, who then adopted it across the wider business.
Design & Development Retros
We’re fortunate to have designers and developers in the same office, but that didn’t necessarily mean collaboration was effective. Because our Figma notes and annotations were so thorough, projects often moved forward with little to no developer handover.
Alongside other collaborative initiatives, I introduced a quarterly design and development retrospective, encouraging the team to surface and discuss challenges across projects. For each issue raised, a solution was agreed upon collectively.
It’s always striking how small changes can have a significant impact on another team’s work and it is for this reason (as well as a time to relax and have a laugh together) that these sessions are hugely beneficial.
Persuasion Principles
For CRO-focused design, it’s essential to understand what motivates users to purchase—often driven by subconscious factors. This is why persuasion principles play such an important role in shaping effective design decisions.
To bring these principles front of mind for the team, I introduced a component into our Figma template containing over 100 persuasion principles, organised around the five MECLABS fundamentals: Motivation, Incentive, Value, Anxiety, and Friction.
Every test was then aligned to a specific persuasion principle, documented within the design notes. This not only helped the team build familiarity and consistency in applying these principles, but also strengthened client confidence in our approach.
2022 - 2026
CK Team Culture
Summary
Team culture is really important for a business in retaining staff and ensuring team members are motivated and happy. When I joined Conversion Kings, I wanted to improve the team culture.
Design Elaboration
Design elaboration takes place every Friday afternoon and runs for 1.5–2 hours. Its purpose is to review the work assigned to each team member for the following week and further refine and elaborate on design solutions. Strategists are also encouraged to present any tests they have included in the sprint.
I also introduced a show-and-tell segment, where team members can share work they’ve completed, as well as tools or articles they’ve discovered.
This session ensures that when we start on Monday, the team is aligned and confident in their assigned work. While it occasionally runs longer than necessary, it also serves as a valuable opportunity to unwind and reflect at the end of a busy week.
Christmas Decorating Competition
At Christmas, the CK office looked much the same as any other time of year—so I saw an opportunity to change that by introducing an inter-team decorating competition.
Each team (or group of desks) could take what they wanted from pile of decorations, they then had three hours to transform their space which. To ensure our offshore team was included, judging was done by remote team members.
Over the following week, desks became increasingly elaborate, with many people even bringing in their own decorations.
It was a chance to step away from billable work and enjoy some light-hearted, competitive fun as a team.
Monthly Team Lunch
Exactly what it sounds like—a team lunch to celebrate the great work achieved over the month. In the lead-up, a poll is shared with restaurant options, often reflecting the diverse cuisines of the many cultures across CK.
It’s a chance to take a well-earned, guilt-free long lunch, connect, and debrief as a team.
Merch & Gifts
After attending a “Scaling Up” workshop, I wanted to apply some of the learnings within the team. One key opportunity identified was improving visibility and celebration of our company core values.
To support this, I created personalised merchandise that was gifted to the team at the end of the financial year and again at Christmas.
The challenge was ensuring these felt genuinely appreciated by the team, rather than feeling like generic corporate merchandise. I believe this was successful, demonstrated by the number of people wearing the T-shirts, using personalised mugs, and applying stickers across their devices.
