Issue #114

Hey Reader,

As you read this I'm currently in the worlds northernmost settlement, Longyearbyen, on the islands of Svalbard!

I had a lot of work to wrap up before I left, though and in this issue I'm sharing a few things I've been focussed on recently:

• Designing and launching the landing page for my workshop
• Performance reviews
• Rethinking the meeting structure we use as a Brand Studio team

Let me tell you about them!

Breaking down the design decisions I made for a workshop sales page

I'm hosting the Crafting a Personal Brand workshop for ambitious creative professionals on August 22nd. Did you get your ticket yet? You can save your seat here on the new landing page I just shipped last week.

I started the design of this page like any web page should begin: with content. I wrote close-to-final copy first, and then made some tweaks once I saw how it was looking in my design.

For the hero section I chose a similar styling to my homepage, with a bold purple background and overlapping images that extend past the purple block to show you that there's more content on the page and you should keep scrolling.

Also like my homepage, I chose to use large photographs taking up half the width of the screen on desktop to accompany different sections of my content. I have a set of high-quality images taken by Paula Furió for a profile that was written about me on the ConvertKit blog, so I had plenty to choose from.

I made them a big visual aspect of the page because the workshop itself is not a technical design tutorial; it's training on figuring out what you want to be known for and how to make it a reality. That's quite an abstract thing to visualise! So I focussed on communicating the friendly, open environment I intend to create for learning through friendly, smiling images. The quality of the photos also helps communicate the quality that ticket buyers can expect from the workshop. If I'd used a bunch of phone selfies, grainy images, or stock photography... it wouldn't give visitors confidence in my workshop quality or content would it?

I switched to a purple background again to present the workshop structure as a series of blocks with arrows between to show that it's a flow we'll move through. I have some concerns that this might feel like the page footer and stop people from scrolling further... but that may just be because I know my footer is purple too!

Of course, as a marketing designer I know the value of social proof! And while I haven't run this exact workshop before, I have spoken at conferences and in my content about personal branding, self promotion, and levelling up in your career – so I shared a few screenshots of kind comments from people who got value from my teaching to reassure anyone who doesn't know me and my content very well that I'm legit!

I went with purple again for my pricing block, deciding that the visual language I wanted to create was that the more storytelling-type content appeared on a gray background, and purple sections were for the factual, to-the-point details.

Because the workshop is a digital product, I did two things to help people feel like they were purchasing a tangible 'thing':

• Put the price, title and checkout button in a block. This gives it structure and feels like a 'price tag' you're looking at to make a final decision.
• Included a clear list of all the value ticket-buyers will receive so that I'm framing the workshop in their minds as something much more valuable than simply attending a livestream (because, it is more valuable!!)

Visit the page to see it for yourself

I'd love to know what you think of it! And if you're considering attending the workshop but still have questions you need answered to decide if it's right for you, please feel free to reply to this email and ask away.

I'd love to see you there on August 22nd.

Reading you my performance review

I'm taking transparency to a new level and sharing my self review with you in my latest YouTube video... eek!

This is something that we write as part of our performance review process at ConvertKit. Hopefully this will help you to learn something about how to approach your own performance review and think about where you need to grow but... if you just want to watch because you're nosey, that's cool too.

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Last week I got to read the review my manager had written. Should I share details on his feedback for me in a future vlog? Leave a comment on the video and let me know!

Figjamming your rituals

One of the talks I missed in person at Figma's conference Config was Figjamming your rituals – a talk about facilitating and adding fun moments of connection into your weekly planning rituals using FigJam.

I've been feeling like I need to change up the weekly meeting I host with the Brand Studio team at ConvertKit. For a team of creatives, our meeting time doesn't feel very creative and in the format we're currently using we tend to fall back on dry status updates. I know we can get more out of our time together, so as a first step to solving this I watched the talk below and picked up a few great tips!

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I'm looking forward to experimenting with our meeting format and perhaps sharing the results with you in a future issue. If you've been feeling like the meetings you're in could be more engaging and create better connections then I recommend you watch the talk too!

I'll share some photos of my time in the artic with you in this spot in the next issue.

In the meantime, I have one last YouTube recommendation for you! call me a nerd but I love watching videos about other peoples jobs. And not just design jobs! I came across a week-in-my-life vlog from a Senior Digital Marketing Manager for a NYC luxury fashion brand the other day that I really enjoyed – go check it out here. As marketing designers, it's great for us to know more about what our marketing team peers actually do in their jobs and Urvi breaks down performance marketing in particular really well in this video.

See you in the next issue,

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