Luxury Platform Launch

Launching a premium car buying experience within platform constraints and brand expectations.

Project summary

Designed and launched a new luxury car buying experience for Marshall Motor Group on a mass market platform. Led UX direction across three squads, evolved cinch’s design system, and defined photography standards under a six week deadline. The experience launched on time and established a scalable luxury framework for future premium brands.

Overview

Marshall Motor Group wanted to create a new digital outlet for selling luxury vehicles. A dedicated brand was established, with the website built on cinch’s existing platform, which had originally been designed for mass market listings. Luxury cars that were currently listed on Marshall’s main website did not yet meet luxury brand expectations, risking lower trust and weaker engagement from premium buyers. This initiative supported a broader strategy to position luxury vehicles as a distinct digital offering, helping the business capture higher-margin segments without rebuilding the core platform.

My role

Led UX and visual direction across three cross functional squads, acting as the central design point of contact across product, engineering, brand, and external partners.

Alignment on luxury brand principles and target personas.

Approach

Defining the luxury experience

Ran a rapid alignment sprint to define luxury UX principles. Benchmarked automotive, fashion, and real estate platforms to identify premium signals such as restrained layouts, spacing, refined typography, and editorial imagery.

Early visual concepts were explored by applying insights from luxury benchmarking.

Designing within platform constraints

Evolved cinch’s design system through spacing, typography hierarchy, new brand colours, and component behaviour changes. We considered creating bespoke luxury components, but this would have increased engineering scope and threatened the six week timeline. I prioritised system evolution to balance brand elevation with delivery certainty. Brand stakeholders initially pushed for a more expressive visual direction, while engineering emphasised reuse. I facilitated alignment workshops to agree on achievable luxury signals within platform constraints.

Example of how cinch components were adapted to Marshall brand

Photography standards

Defined framing, lighting, and background standards with Autos On Show and brand stakeholders to ensure consistent premium presentation.

A new image background was introduced to ensure image consistancy across dealerships.

Focused delivery under time pressure

Worked with product owners to prioritise a tightly scoped MVP, deferring non essential enhancements to a post launch roadmap to maintain quality within the deadline.

Outcome

The experience launched on schedule within six weeks, giving Marshall a premium digital storefront for £70k+ vehicles.

Delivered to the deadline: a tightly scoped MVP shipped on time, with further enhancements planned into a post-launch roadmap
A brand layer, not a rebuild: luxury typography, spacing and colour were built as an extension of cinch's design system, so one platform could carry a second brand
Consistent premium presentation: photography standards for framing, lighting and backgrounds were agreed with Autos On Show and brand stakeholders
Ready to reuse: the result is a luxury framework that future premium brands can launch on

A core user journey was identified, which formed the basis of the MVP scope.

Key learnings

Luxury experiences rely as much on consistency and restraint as on visual polish
Early alignment is critical when brand direction is still evolving
Clear prioritisation enables high quality outcomes under aggressive timelines

What I would do next

The first phase focused on the core car discovery and browsing journey. A clear next step would be expanding into richer supporting content such as ownership benefits, aftersales services, financing guidance, and brand storytelling. This would build trust earlier in the decision journey and better match luxury competitor experiences.