Start your masterpiece! Insights into Design & Creative roles within ecommerce: Part One

The pandas really want to give you the greatest insider tips, tailored to the role you want. So, you lucky people are getting a new blog miniseries! This time around, we are focusing on design and creative roles across the ecommerce landscape.

Design, whether it be web content or user friendly websites, is fundamental in a successful ecommerce campaign. It’s such a broad area of expertise that we’ve recruited a bit of help. Look out for hints and insights from our very own creative panda throughout the miniseries.

Demonstrate and you can stand out

Whatever area of design you excel in, you need to show why you excel in it. It’s very possible that an employer will ask for evidence of your skills, particularly in their field of business. Here are the best tips for working portfolio requests to your advantage:

• Presentation has to be impeccable! The visual side of your design might be great, and the technical implementations look promising. It’s simply not enough.
• Our creative panda, Yasmin, strongly believes in a stand out portfolio. “Your thought process into how you present your work will speak for itself when you show it. Annotate it, and tell the story of your ideas coherently.”
• If you have a great plan, don’t just throw it all together. You don’t want your idea for an innovative checkout experience to come before the landing page, right? If you can’t go through your own ideas clearly, how will you take a customer through a comfortable user experience?

Going above and beyond

Showing your knowledge of the brand is essential, but you can differentiate yourself from your peers with some initiative. Show your diversity by bringing some other pieces you know were successful, and how your unique style can be transferred to the employers’ ideas.

Ecommerce is always changing and so should you. Show your diversity early on, and you’ll demonstrate how adaptable you really are. Your past work, no matter how different it may be to what is required of you in the prospective role, is your creative story. Show the employer that the story can continue with them.

Had a look at recent job advertisements?

 We did it for you, for a small overview of portfolio requirements. We had a look at 20 ads across different sites, and found 14 roles requesting detailed examples of design work. Ten of these were mid-senior level digital design roles, while the remaining four were junior design roles.

The ads without portfolio requests were all junior roles. So, while they might not expect a grand portfolio due to fewer years in the industry, it doesn’t mean they wouldn’t like to see anything. Be prepared, and show them something that really impresses.

Be commercially minded!

“The calibre is high so extra insight and skills will seal the deal.” Yasmin told us, and we couldn’t agree more. What can you bring into any potential interview to show you have that commercial flair?

• Customer Research- If you’re going to be designing a great user experience, or writing editorial content, you will always need to know who you’re doing it for. Find out buying habits or consumer opinions from reviews and social media. You can gage what they love, and how you’d approach fixing what they don’t.
• Latest Web Trends- It’s good to be on par with competitors, but it’s great to think outside the box and get ahead. A great example is from Jack Jones, who utilise ‘Clustering’ when presenting their products. Rather than focus on an individual product, they will present it as an outfit with more from their range. However, they allow the customer to interact and try different products as if they were in the changing room. Even if they only had the shirt in mind, seeing a nice pair of jeans with it will rack up order values.

Time to refresh. . .

Enjoy our first dip in the creative pool? We will be diving in with our next instalment, with a focus on in-demand digital design skills and how to optimise your own.

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