Building and leading a design Function
As the first digital product and experience design leader hired at Aesop, I established the design function, built a global distributed team of designers, and helped to grow Aesop's digital footprint across the world.
At Aesop, a company renowned for its premium skincare and beauty products, I embarked on a journey of design leadership that transformed not only the product design team but also the entire organisation's approach to experience design. As a designer, I naturally gravitated towards creating impact, establishing processes for cross-functional collaboration to ensure seamless integration of design across teams, streamlining design through research and craft management to maintain high-quality standards, and building a global experience design team. When new product teams became a necessity to drive innovation and meet evolving market demands, I was promoted to lead the Experience Design team and service design practice.
Design Leadership
Design Operations
3x headcount
Grew the design team from 2 to a team of 6 designers across the regions to support product teams and omni-channel initiatives.
10x
Delivery of design projects
2 to 80
Figma collaborators
100%
Adoption of multiplatform design system
Identifying how design can add value to the business
Tasked with building a robust design function, I identified critical long-term focus areas to align with Aesop’s digital growth ambitions:
- Team growth and culture: expanding the design team to meet increasing demand and support future digital and omni-channel initiatives.
- Strategic design approach: elevate design maturity, positioning it as a key business differentiator.
- Design quality and product thinking: clearly defined standards and priniciples for exceptional user experiences.
- Building trust: establishing design as a strategic partner and ensure design is part of the decision-making across the organisation.
Unpacking these opportunities enabled me to craft six guiding pillars from which to plan activities, support the business and champion what we do across the organisation.
Design toolkits
I implemented standardised design templates to ensure consistency, streamline processes, and reduce design debt. This initiative promoted efficiency and maintained high-quality standards across all projects.
Increasing quality and speed of design decisions
Like many nascent digital product teams, design by committee had become the default approach—where decisions were often bogged down in compromise, leading to sluggishness in releasing new work and widespread dissatisfaction. In response to widespread feedback, I spearheaded the implementation of a comprehensive framework for brand-aligned decision-making. Collaboratively establishing guiding principles with our product and experience teams, we addressed the challenges of slow decision-making and dissatisfaction by ensuring our design choices were firmly rooted in Aesop's brand values and product thinking. This approach not only streamlined decision-making but also fostered greater speed, consistency, and cohesion in our design processes.
Digital Product Design Process
With newly formed product teams, it was important to provide direction for how design could operate within agile ways of working. As such, establishing a well-defined product design process was imperative as it served as a crucial onboarding tool, providing new squads with a solid framework for collaboration. I created artefacts and knowledge base in our confluence to guide teams on recommended approaches for developing new features. By ensuring seamless collaboration and alignment of team efforts, we not only followed best practices and industry standards but also facilitated a smoother transition for new team members, ultimately leading to higher-quality outcomes.
Scaling design standards
In parallel, to empower the team to work at speed, I championed the implementation of standardised processes and templates. These templates served as a cornerstone in promoting efficiency, provide designers and their collaborators recommended frameworks to collaboration, roles and responsibilities, whilst maintaining consistency across projects. By adhering utilises these kits we not only upheld design standards but also enhanced collaboration and coherence within our teams, thereby optimising our overall design workflow.
Design system
I initiated the creation of our first design system to elevate digital experience quality and ensure consistency. Through several iterations and a decentralised approach, the system empowered team members to contribute effectively. This comprehensive set of reusable components and guidelines streamlined processes, reduced duplication, and enhanced collaboration across global teams.
Our design system grew in usage from 2 contributors to over 80 collaborators across CRM, Marketing, Creative, Engineering, Content & Production and Product. The formation of lean design operations enabled us to foster a cohesive design language across all our major regions and owned digital channels and 8 new ecommerce experiences and apps.
Experience vision
One of my core goals at Aesop was conveying how the role of design can add value outside of digital. Crafting a compelling vision and roadmap for Aesop's omni-channel experience was a critical aspect of my design leadership at Aesop. One of the more impactful projects I worked on was the design and development of a holistic experience vision microsite and omni-channel roadmap.
Through conducting interviews with numerous store managers worldwide and harnessing both qualitative and quantitative customer research, I spearheaded the development of our future integrated customer experience. Inspired by our brand's affinity with literature, we crafted a series of short stories detailing customers' interactions across our channels. Each narrative was meticulously crafted through the lens of our key customer archetypes, ensuring resonance with the diverse needs and preferences of our target audience.
Through these artefacts all Aesop employees were able to align on the needs of our customers and begin using the same language for the various problems and opportunities across the customer experience.
Establishing design rituals
In order to provide a home from each designers respective product team, and also to ensure each designer had a holistic view of the design across our ecommerce platform, I created two session per week for design studio. The sessions provided much needed context and provide a formal design critique for contributors to share work, get support and refine their work. It provided a feeling of shared ownership over the design, which led to less friction and easier collaboration.By encouraging open dialogue and constructive criticism, I created an environment that promoted learning and growth, empowering our designers to push the boundaries of their craft.
Building trust with the rest of the company
Being a new function it was crucial for me to rapidly build trust in order to empower my team. I implemented fortnightly UX playbacks for the whole organisation, creating a transparent and inclusive platform for our team to share their work, gather feedback, and address business gaps from across the organisation.
Additionally, I developed gates for stakeholder engagement and communication, establishing clear channels for collaboration and ensuring that design decisions were informed by diverse perspectives and aligned with the company's strategic goals.
These initiatives cultivated a culture of collaboration and transparency, and our UX playback quickly became one of the most well attended sessions across the business.
"James is extremely good at building partnerships with other people and teams in the business. I have always admired how positive and solution-focused he is, no matter what the situation is. I truly believe without James at the helm of the UX team that his department would not have the same respect and trust as it currently does to uphold the brand and the customer's needs."
— Simon Turner, Global Content and Production Manager
Innovation jams
To increase collaboration within the product teams I partnered with Product and delivey to run annual Innovation Jams, providing a platform for cross-functional teams to ideate, experiment, and explore innovative solutions to complex problems. By bringing together diverse perspectives and fostering an environment of creativity and risk-taking, we were able to augment our roadmaps with delighters pushing the boundaries of what was possible within our current sprint cadences.
Reflecting on these years, my design leadership initiatives and strategies have yielded tangible and transformative outcomes, elevating Aesop's design practice to a strategic partner in shaping our digital and omnichannel experiences. The design team's contributions have become a driving force behind our product roadmap and brand guardianship across all customer touch-points.
Throughout this journey, I have learned the importance of building strong, cross-functional relationships to foster collaboration and drive innovation. I have seen firsthand how establishing clear processes and standards can significantly enhance efficiency and quality. Moreover, I have come to appreciate the value of creating an inclusive and transparent environment where all team members feel empowered to challenge and contribute to the design conversation. These lessons have been instrumental in shaping my approach to design leadership and will continue to guide me as we navigate future challenges and opportunities.
