Creating a rich and engaging world for author’s and their stories

Creating a rich and engaging world for author’s and their stories

In my role as Digital Design Lead at Penguin Random House, I was tasked with championing author's digital online presence through various microsites, social media and digital campaigns. I worked closely across the various divisions bringing their authors dreams, visions and learnings into the minds of the readers.

The digital team were in their infancy and I was brought in to help organise the digital offering of PRH from creative campaigns to digital design strategy, creating digital guidelines and helping with the digital delivery - no mean feat!

Moreover, there were countless other projects that required my design and creative input. From milestone celebrations like Summer of Penguin, to collaborating across departments on consumer campaigns and facilitating creative workshops. Highlight initiatives included growing vertical strategies such as Happy Foodie and Dead Good Books.

When I needed to come up with a campaign for an authors book. Where did I start? Firstly, I would spend time researching the subject and then setup a creative workshop with key members of the team to sound out different ideas. I would then think about the target audience for the digital design or campaign idea.

Moving on to roughly sketching my ideas out on paper. This section of the process was really important to get any ideas onto a page and see what works and what doesn't. These sketches were more and more refined before iterating and moving to final designs.

One of my favourite campaigns was the Summer of Penguin, celebrating Penguins 80th birthday. This involved working with various third parties; illustrators, creatives, developers and agencies; delivering an integrated digital campaign.

Penguin collaborated with Transport for London and Virgin Media’s WiFi service on a mobile-first Summer of Penguin site, where passengers could choose daily excerpts of new books, ideas and author interviews during the summer. “This partnership takes the written word beyond the page to inspire and entertain travellers on the London Underground and celebrates the stories, writing and ideas that have shaped Penguin over the past eighty years,” said Hannah Telfer, Managing Director, Audiences & Audio at Penguin Random House UK.