Andrew Harris

I'm currently working with The Head of Design & Creative Director on various internal projects to improve the product design process.

I was invited back by Condé Nast to be the Senior Design Lead for Architectural Digest, to bring to market their latest offering, the AD PRO Directory.

This new offering is a B2C Directory, connecting homeowners and renovators directly to the designers who inspire them. Carefully vetted Interior Designers, Architects and Garden Designers can get their name and business in front of AD's discerning readers.

I worked closely with Editorial, Product and a global Engineering team to launch this technically challenging MVP project within a year.

I suffered a couple of serious health issues in 2021, which landed me in hospital for a few weeks. I took the decision to resign from my full time role at Condé Nast to focus on my recovery, and to allow me the time and headspace to attend multiple out-patient hospital appointments in the months that followed.

Working within an international team to improve user engagement and features across all digital platforms for 3 key global brands within the suite of Condé Nast portfolio.

Key responsibilities:

• Working closely with Product managers across Architectural Digest, GQ and Condé Nast Traveller to migrate all websites onto a single platform, and to apply a single brand identity across all markets
• Leading the Product design for Condé Nast Traveller’s digital global experience
• Working with Product managers to prioritise business requirements and stakeholder priorities to meet OKR’s
• Delivering new features across brands to increase customer engagement, subscriptions and company revenue
• Working within a highly agile and ever-changing environment whilst delivering best-in-class design
• Consider future feature development whist working within the restraints of the present
• Working collaboratively with Design teams to improve product design process and delivery

Working within an international team of Editors, UX Researchers and Product managers to imagine and deliver a new commercially-focused global digital experience for Condé Nast Traveler.

Key responsibilities:

• Working closely with Editorial, Researchers and Product to define the new global digital experience for Condé Nast Traveller
• Defining the new site information architecture to surface best-in-class editorial content
• Revise and introduce new user journeys to drive customer engagement, loyalty and revenue
• Prototyping new experiences for user testing
• Migrating all CNT global websites onto a single platform
• Consolidating multiple brand identities into a single global brand language
• Collaboration with the Vogue product team to define and design a new ‘Vogue Club’ experience

I had the pleasure to work with a couple of global brands and internal departments within Condé Nast International for nearly 4 years, to design and deliver on multiple projects.

Key responsibilities:

• Worked with a Consultant product manager on a new Condé Nast product proposition (later to become Vogue Business)
• Collaborated with key Digital product stakeholders at Vogue to deliver a new global fashion shows experience
• Worked with the Corporate communications team and an external digital agency to design & launch a new global corporate website
• Worked with the Vogue Business product manager and development team to design the user experience for Vogue Businesses job search platform (Vogue Business Talent)
• Designed the Marketing website and introduced a metered content experience to drive subscriptions for Vogue Business
• Working closely with the Head of product for Vogue Business to launch a paywall as a key revenue generator

After leaving WGSN, I set up my own limited company for freelance purposes. Before joining Condé Nast as a freelance Senior digital product designer, I worked on the following 2 projects.

I was approached by Luke Halls Studio to create a design treatment for ‘The Russell Howard Hour’, a satirical comedy show on Sky 1. It follows stand up comic Russell Howard tackling hard-hitting topics with his unique sense of humour. I created the logo and provided design direction for the digital wall used in his shows.

Watermelon Research invited me to revamp their client dashboards. Watermelon is a Customer Insights company who provide insights for clients to better understand their customer touch points. The client dashboard displays customer data (sentiment gathered through surveys) for clients to better serve their customers.

Working as part of an international product team to design new product, whilst maintaining and adding features to the existing WGSN digital portfolio.

Key responsibilities:

• Collaborating with the UX Research team and Director of product to define the product direction and roadmap
• Working within an Agile project environment
• Working across multiple projects which included iOs App design, Web apps and transforming big data into UI for our users
• Designing features for subscribers to drive commercial success for the business
• Wire framing and prototyping mock-ups for User testing
• Daily video call check-in’s with the New York team, and international travel to work face-to-face
• Ongoing management of the Design team, providing design services to Editorial and Marketing

Managing a team of 8 digital designers to provide creative support to a 60 strong team of Editors, busy Marketing department and Product team.

Key responsibilities:

• Scheduling and managing the daily workflow of 8 Digital designers to deliver time critical editorial content for a 60 strong team located at London's head office
• Managing a team of designers who design, code and publish over 400 annual ‘trend reports’ for WGSN’s 35,000 subscribers
• Contributing to and implementing WGSN’s global brand updates across the websites and marketing collateral
• Collaborating with Product development team to roll out new site features
• Designing collateral for Marketing, trade shows and WGSN events
• Designing Marketing microsite’s for WGSN’s busy event calendar
• Working with Department heads on a daily basis to manage work pipelines
• Interviewing new designers, conducting designer appraisals and mentoring Junior designers
• International travel to New York and Hong Kong to work with regional teams.

Previously a Retail Buyer at Harrods (Sportwear / Fashion), I changed career path to begin life as a Digital Designer. My true interest has always been in the creative industry, so I took the leap of faith and taught myself the software of the time to gain my first paid roles as a Digital designer.

Experience & projects included:

• Partnering with a friend to create a Flash based e-commerce site selling men's t-shirts. We enjoyed editorial exposure in GQ & 'Jack' men's lifestyle magazines, and stocked our range of t-shirts in a popular west-end independent fashion store.
• I worked as an online Video Editor at a small post-production company in London's Soho, editing music commercials for clients such as HMV, Sony Music and M-TV. We also edited short films and product infomercials
• I worked with founder of canvas8.com to design their new subscription based consumer insights platform
• My time at WGSN began as a freelance Digitial Designer working in their busy in-house Art department. We designed and coded up 100's of trend reports annually for web publication to over 10,000 clients.