Lingo.University

2018-2020

A chance meeting in early 2018, led to my joining Lingo.University as its COO. The company had been founded 2 years earlier but the then vague notion of an online English school had failed to get off the starting blocks.

After procuring the right company to develop the website, I set to laying out the UX and UI for Lingo.University. Having a design background and draughtsmanship aided me in conveying my ideas to the programmers. And so, from 6 sketches for the main pages, LU started to take shape.

My vision for LU was to deliver quality online classes through a website with intuitive design that was easy to use - child’s play even! The complexities of making LU a reality drew on the full range of my skill set, being responsible for:

  • Developing the UI and UX for LU and designing user flowcharts.
  • Creating the look and identity of the platform, from the layout, text, colour palette and fonts to the look and feel of the classes given by the remote teachers.
  • Creating Luna, Alice and Mars: the 3 characters that accompany students throughout their journey with LU - and bringing them to live using Adobe Character Animation.
  • Procuring - free of charge - the rights to use, what has become, the theme tune of LU from one of my favourite modern composers: Helen-Jane Long.
  • Finding the right digital materials from Cambridge University Press and developing a working relationship.
  • Working with indeed UK to procure teachers for online classes.
  • Helping and guiding the teachers to deliver quality classes using our platform.
  • Developing separate courses to fit the 3 possible plans: 1,2, or 3 days per week.
  • To produce teaching programmes for every class - for every level - for every plan.
  • Design online placement tests and criteria to get the right students in the right classes.
  • To design and produce digital assessment tests for students - for each chapter/ topic, trimestre and end of year.
  • Scripting, storyboarding, filming and editing all promotional videos.
  • Developing a proactive working relationship with our online conferencing provider: GoToMeeting.
  • Creating the “magical classroom”: the child’s portal with timed access to their classes; weekly videos, songs and stories; timely assessments (with diplomas) and instruction videos for accessing their classes and using the digital material.
  • Designing a system for connecting our classes with the class materials housed on BlinkLearning.
  • Designing and creating our own digital books using BlinkLearning PREMIUM.
  • To produce, film and edit user guides for The Cambridge Teacher, BlinkLearning and GoToMeeting.
  • Creating social media accounts and concepts for Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.

Whilst working for LU I have gained skills in: Adobe Photshop, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Character Animator, Vectornator, iMovie, BlinkLearning PREMIUM, H5P content and basic skills (and a desire to learn more) in CSS, HTML and JavaScript.

My reworking of the logo - more eye-like with sweeping lines and the world replaces a featureless sphere.
My image for the cover of Magical Book 1 with Luna.
From the outset, I had the idea of using different sizes of rockets to represent the 3 study plans: 1,2, or 3 days per week.
An early mock up of the landing page.
My image for the cover of Magical Book 3 with Alice and her watermelon kite.
A lightbulb moment!.
Paul John Weller is an English singer-songwriter and musician. Weller achieved fame with the punk rock/new wave/mod revival band The Jam. Huccess with the blue-eyed soul music of the Style Council, before establishing himself as a solo artist with his eponymous 1992 album.
As with all frontend elements on the site, I wanted everyone - regardless of their first language - to be able to navigate the site with ease. These menu bar icons are good examples of that philosophy.
When designing visual elements for LU, I kept my key demographic at the front of my mind - so the buttons for the placement and assessment test became coloured balloons..
This is my visual representation of the Natural English process. I created an eye-catching Gif to illustrate learning process.
Lingo.University's first character: Luna, a 7-year old. Created using Ventornator, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Character Animation.
To engage with parents and their children, frontend elements were bold, colourful and fun.
A still from a Christmas video. Using Adobe Character Animation and Adobe After Effects, I created a snowy wonderland with Luna and Alice singing "All I want for Christmas is you".
Paul John Weller is an English singer-songwriter and musician. Weller achieved fame with the punk rock/new wave/mod revival band The Jam. Huccess with the blue-eyed soul music of the Style Council, before establishing himself as a solo artist with his eponymous 1992 album.
Lingo.University's second character: Alice, a 9-year old. Created using Ventornator, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Character Animation.
To encourage interaction from visitors to the site, the contact form was presented as a postcard.
Lingo.University's third character: Mars, an 11-year old. Created using Ventornator, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Character Animation.
An 8 point Gif to highlight the most important elements of LU's philosophy.
For each Magical Book, there were individually designed header panels.
Many exercises in the Magical Books required artwork - here, I reworked the 3 characters to create Alice's family.