# Pollen

> How I stopped Pollen positioning premium destination holidays as impulse buys.

Case study by Ian Hazelton. Web version: https://www.ianhazelton.com/work/pollen

- **Discipline:** Product design & leadership
- **Scope:** Event sites, checkout, marketing artwork
- **Role:** Principal product designer
- **Team:** Leading seven designers
- **Timeline:** Nov 2021 – Sep 2022
- **Scope:** Everything a customer does before the event

## Outcomes

- **92%** Pitch-site visitors who arrived from Instagram

## The short version

1. **Impulse buys:** Pollen was trying to sell the trip of a lifetime as if it were an impulse decision.
2. **Artwork:** Every poster was a one-off, and it showed.
3. **Tools & rules:** Pollen stepped back, so every event could dress for itself.
4. **Pitch sites:** 92% of visitors arrived from Instagram, so the pitch site behaved like Instagram.
5. **Booking:** The booking site stopped being original and started being familiar.
6. **The end:** Pollen went into administration in August 2022, nine months after I joined.

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### Case study

[Video: The Abode on the Snow event site, across phones](https://www.ianhazelton.com/work/pollen/event-site-once.mp4)

## 01 · Impulse buys

**Pollen was trying to sell the trip of a lifetime as if it were an impulse decision.**

Pollen started out selling festival tickets. After covid it sold whole trips: an artist, a destination, a hotel and a week away. But the brand, the artwork and the websites still behaved as if it sold tickets, something you grab in a moment and forget.

I led design for everything a customer did before the event, with a team of seven designers.

## 02 · Artwork

**Every poster was a one-off, and it showed.**

Every event was getting its own unique artwork, made by hand for every size and every medium. It was painfully slow to produce.

The results missed on two counts. No two pieces looked alike, so nothing felt like one company. Yet every piece was dominated by Pollen’s own loud style, so the event itself got lost. A heavy-metal festival and a yoga retreat should feel like different worlds, with Pollen quietly vouching for both.

Most of it also only worked big. Shrunk to a phone screen, the detail fell apart.

![Before: J Balvin Neon Ibiza, Abode on the Snow and the 50 Cent Experience, each in its own style](https://www.ianhazelton.com/work/pollen/before-artwork.webp)

_Before._

## 03 · Tools & rules

**Pollen stepped back, so every event could dress for itself.**

We split the work in two. Pollen became the structure: the grid, the body text and a small logo, the same on every poster. The event became everything else, its colours, images and logo, so each one looked and felt like itself.

Then we turned that into a tool: one Figma template, with a variant for every size and medium. Marketing picks two colours, two images and the event’s logo, and the template does the rest, from an Underground poster to an Instagram story.

### The rules

- **Colour**: Two per event: a primary and an accent, chosen to suit it.
- **Images**: Two: a background for the place or mood, and the artist in the foreground.
- **Logo**: The event’s own logo, set large enough to lead the poster.
- **Body**: Dates and place on the left, and a ticked list of what’s included on the right.
- **Pollen**: A small logo, bottom right. Nothing more.
- **Sizes**: One grid for every format: post, story, banner and newsletter.

### The layers

![Two colours](https://www.ianhazelton.com/work/pollen/layers/colour.webp)

![Background image](https://www.ianhazelton.com/work/pollen/layers/background.webp)

![Foreground image](https://www.ianhazelton.com/work/pollen/layers/artist.webp)

![Event logo](https://www.ianhazelton.com/work/pollen/layers/title.svg)

![Body](https://www.ianhazelton.com/work/pollen/layers/footer.svg)

_Five events from one template: the ingredients change, the body never moves._

_The Sankofa poster, rebuilt from its template: one design reflowing to every format._

![Pollen poster in the London Underground](https://www.ianhazelton.com/work/pollen/poster.jpg)

_Green Light Gang, on the London Underground._

## 04 · Pitch sites

**92% of visitors arrived from Instagram, so the pitch site behaved like Instagram.**

Almost everyone landed on an event’s first page mid-scroll, and nobody commits $5,000 in that frame of mind. So the page worked like a story: big photos and video, one line each, swiped through.

It sold the feeling, and asked only for an email and a share. The planning could wait for a bigger screen.

_A pitch site, swiped like a story._

## 05 · Booking

**The booking site stopped being original and started being familiar.**

Booking meant choosing rooms and travel and entering every guest’s legal name, all before a card payment of up to $5,000. We stopped inventing, and used the patterns people already know from Expedia and hotels.com, in the event’s own colours.

The lead booker added everyone’s email, kept the parts they wanted (themselves and a partner, say), and sent the rest to each friend to fill in and pay.

### Abode on the Snow

_Landing, itinerary, line-up, hotels and the package builder, each in the event’s own colours._

## 06 · The end

**Pollen went into administration in August 2022, nine months after I joined.**

I led design from Stockholm, a long way from the decisions that ended it. Sign-ups and bookings were climbing on the new sites, but the company ran out of road before we could measure what the work was worth.

My last job there was helping the team land their next roles.

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Part of the portfolio of Ian Hazelton: https://www.ianhazelton.com/llms.txt