Leading the evolution of the BOTB brand
FROM LOGO TO £50M BRAND
Brand Evolution / Strategy / Identity Systems / Comms / UX Design (2018–2025)
Win Your Dream Car! BOTB is a competitions company established in 1999. You may have seen BOTB at major UK airports in the past, but they're now exclusively online.
When I joined as their sole in-house designer in 2018, the brand was essentially just a logo. Over five years, I led a full-scale transformation, developing a cohesive, scalable identity system that helped position the business as a premium, trusted competitions platform. This brand transformation played a significant role in driving growth, engagement, and ultimately contributed to a £50m acquisition offer in 2023.
BOTB foundations
The first step was defining the core brand strategy: purpose, positioning, audience, and tone of voice. As the UK’s leading competitions platform, we aimed to disrupt a space dominated by “bargain” aesthetics, instead leading and positioning BOTB as premium (new cars to win), trusted (by sharing winner surprise videos), and informative (expert car reviews from our car guru Tim) with a tone that was both friendly and knowledgable.
We sell dreams, not tickets - our comms needed to reflect that.
Scope of Work
Visual Design
UI & UX
Client
BOTB
Year
2018-present
A recognisable system
To create consistency across our growing number of channels (website, CRM, social, print, video), I developed a flexible visual toolkit, including:
A modular logo system for use across contexts
Expanded colour palette, mapping hues to different competition types for quick identification
Grid systems to ensure balanced layouts across formats
Iconic slanted typographic treatments to add energy and brand own-ability
Iconography that guided users through content with clarity and charm
Typographic evolution by replacing a playful, bubbly font with a sharper, more confident sans-serif to reflect a more mature brand tone
Automotive elements, chevrons and other car references
Refining photography
We eliminated outdated visuals like clip art and leaned into clear, aspirational photography - showcasing prizes in an irresistible, editorial style with enough space to breathe. For social media, we introduced platform-specific content (memes, fast motion, little text-led graphics) that allowed us to engage in ways that felt connected with their different audiences yet brand-aligned.
Same stories but different every time
BOTB runs weekly competitions, the brand needed to be both instantly recognisable and continuously refreshed all year round (hectic task!). I built a flexible brand system that could scale and adapt - new templates, exciting visuals, rapid creative cycles, and recognisable elements.
We extended the brand across:
New social platforms and video content
Events (Goodwood, Modball, Carfest)
CRM campaigns and winner videos
The BOTB app
Solid customer service and review system (Trust Pilot mainly)
Daily website updates
Direct and indirect acquisition campaigns
Influencers and trusted brands
