Global Blue Rebrand & Website Design
I helped rebrand Global Blue and designed their new site.
Above: The site structure we proposed was based around three core content pillars: Shoppers, Businesses and About Us.
Background
Global Blue are a strategic technology and payments provider that partners with retailers worldwide to enhance the experience of shoppers. In early 2020 I was approached to help them rebrand their image and create a new website.
Understanding the business
Global Blue’s proposition spanned two audiences:
- Tax free shoppers: offering tax free shopping and refund services to customers in 40+ countries in over 300,000 stores
- Businesses: offering payment and refund solutions to businesses around the world, designed to streamline everything to do with shopping tax free.
I worked with Stefan Dyke to define a new site architecture based around these pillars. This required a few interactive workshops with the client to ensure all relevant content had a home.
Site structure & navigation
To bring the proposed structure to life, I created a navigation design showing how a user might navigate through the site and to explore opportunities around content signposting. This really helped solidify the structure we were proposing.
Bringing the new brand to life
We agreed that the brand should be presented in a bold, confident manner to convey the underlying expertise, heritage and trust inherent in the Global Blue brand. I created a series of initial designs exploring how we might use colour, typography and imagery to achieve this. I like to involve clients in the early design phases of a project as I find feedback and engagement spikes as soon as something visual is created.
Whilst the initial direction was bold, we felt it was lacking a certain class, a sophistication that we wanted users to feel when they landed on the homepage. These initial designs were continually developed with the client until we arrived at a look and feel that felt right.
Above: The initial design direction explored how we might present the brand in a bold, confident way. Whilst not 100% right, parts of this exploration did resolve into the final designs.
Final designs
Continual feedback from the client shaped the final designs and the purpose of each template of the new site.
Design guidelines
To help maintain the designs post-launch, I created a set of high-level design guidelines covering everything from core brand components to page layout, imagery, iconography and content.
Launch & outcome
The final designs were delivered in April 2020 just as the Covid pandemic was taking hold. Sadly this meant that the site did not proceed to the build phase.