BRIGHTLOCAL
Transforming a fragmented SaaS experience into a scalable product and brand ecosystem.
BrightLocal had established itself as a trusted platform within the local SEO space, but as the business scaled, the customer experience became increasingly fragmented across product, marketing, onboarding, and brand touchpoints.
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The challenge was not simply visual consistency. It was operational. Different teams were moving at different speeds, the product experience lacked cohesion, and onboarding friction was impacting activation and conversion across the platform.
As Creative Director, I was brought in to reset the creative and product experience across the business, evolving BrightLocal from a disconnected SaaS platform into a more scalable, product-led brand.
My Role
I led the transformation across brand, product, and design operations, working closely with executive stakeholders, product teams, marketers, and engineers to align the business around a more cohesive customer experience.
My responsibilities included:
Leading the end-to-end rebrand across all digital and product touchpoints
Redefining onboarding and activation journeys within the platform
Building and implementing a scalable Figma-first design system
Scaling and restructuring the internal design organisation
Introducing new operational processes, governance, and creative standards
Aligning product, marketing, and brand teams under a unified design direction
The Challenge
The business had grown rapidly, but the experience users encountered across the ecosystem lacked consistency and clarity.
Some of the core issues included:
Fragmented product and marketing experiences
Inconsistent UI patterns and brand application
Slow and inefficient creative workflows
Growing complexity across internal teams and delivery pipelines
Onboarding friction impacting trial-to-paid conversion
Lack of scalable systems to support future growth
The goal was to create a more unified experience that improved trust, accelerated delivery, and supported commercial growth across the business.
Strategic Approach
Rather than treating the project as a traditional rebrand, I approached it as a full experience transformation across product, operations, and brand systems.
The work focused on three key areas:
1. Unifying Brand & Product
The rebrand extended beyond marketing visuals into the product itself, creating consistency across onboarding, UI patterns, messaging, motion, and customer touchpoints.
This helped reposition BrightLocal as a more mature and trustworthy SaaS platform within an increasingly competitive market.
2. Redesigning Activation & Onboarding
A major focus was improving activation and reducing friction within the trial experience.
Working collaboratively across product and growth teams, we redefined onboarding journeys, simplified key flows, and created a clearer path to value for new users.
This work contributed directly to stronger engagement and improved conversion performance across the platform.
3. Building Scalable Design Operations
To support a rapidly growing organisation, I introduced a scalable Figma-first design and brand system covering:
UI components
Typography standards
Motion principles
Campaign templates
Shared design libraries
Cross-team workflows
Alongside the systems work, I restructured the internal design organisation, scaling the team from 4 to 16 people and introducing clearer leadership ownership, delivery processes, and performance frameworks.
The result was a significantly more efficient and scalable creative operation.
Outcomes
The transformation delivered measurable impact across both product performance and internal operations.
Key Outcomes
Increased trial-to-paid conversion by 28%
Contributed to 20%+ revenue growth during tenure
Delivered a full rebrand across product, marketing, and digital touchpoints within 6 months
Reduced delivery timelines and revision cycles by approximately 40%
Scaled the design organisation from 4 to 16 people
Introduced scalable design systems and governance across the business
Managed design and creative budgets exceeding £1.6M
Helped reposition BrightLocal as a more mature, product-led SaaS brand
Reflection
One of the biggest lessons from this work was recognising that design maturity is not only about visual quality. It is about operational clarity.
By aligning brand, product, systems, and teams under a shared design direction, we were able to move faster, improve consistency, and create a more trusted customer experience across the entire platform.
This project reinforced my belief that the role of design leadership is not just to improve interfaces, but to create the conditions for organisations to scale coherently.