Nirmal Dhiman
Head of Design

Nirmal Dhiman's portfolio

Nirmal Dhiman is a versatile senior designer and product lead usually working with design agencies, brands, start-ups, transformation consultancies, and software/technology companies.

Agency experience

Award-winning design for clients across financial services, insurance, technology, telco, ecommerce, entertainment, toys, FMCGs, beauty, the arts, public sector and charities.

Digital Product

As a founding designer I have architected 0>1 products and services from initial MVP, to go-live and taken them through to full maturity

Products include

Connected software eco-systems, retail services, marketplaces, booking systems, native apps, employee tools, data-heavy analytics, smart automations, CMS publishing and even physical hardware.

Clients

Clients include O2 Telefonica, Universal Music Group's roster of artists, Dell, Esure, Family Investments, More Than, SSSL, Nikon, Mattel, Ford and many more.

Creative

And alongside my design work, I make a drawing inspired by each day to record, reflect and maintain creative explorations. So far my visual diary has amassed over 10,500 illustrations 📘

Nirm isometric wireframe logo

Design for 200 brands and products

Amy Winehouse
Any Winehouse
Andrex
Arts Council England
Arts Council England
Avaya
AXA PPP healthcare
Barbie
Barbie
Bertolli
Bertolli
Budget Car and Truck Rental
Budget Car and Truck Rental
Churchill
Churchill
CIT
CIT
Dell Financial Services
Dell Financial Services
Discovery Networks
Discovery Networks
Eminem
Eminem
Esure Group
Esure Group
Eurovision
Eurovision
Family Investments
Family Investments
Ford
Ford
GDF Suez (now ENGIE)
GDF Suez (now ENGIE)
Halifax
Halifax
HM Revenue & Customs
HM Revenue & Customs
View all clients

Retail and commerce

NEOM marketplace

0>1 centralised B2B construction marketplace concept, made for the operator, vendors, purchasers and logistics teams for building large-scale infrastructure in the Middle East

Accomplished

Designed first-stage concept for a large-scale B2B procurement and logistics platform for one of the world’s largest infrastructure projects


By doing

Developed end-to-end UX for owners, vendors, and contractors covering bidding, ordering, and logistics workflows


Impact

Worked towards streamlining procurement and delivery scheduling for construction teams, improving supplier engagement and operational control in a complex ecosystem for on-site teams

Construction, design, web, SAAS, ecommerce

Made at BORN Group

Case coming soon

Dell Ewards

0>1 staff engagement platform
 and internal shop, designed initially for UK, but rolled out to Europe, in use for over a decade

Accomplished

Created and scaled a new internal engagement platform, that sat along side inflexible intranet. Adopted across Dell’s European workforce, in use for over a decade


By doing

Designed, built, and maintained a feature-rich extranet with gamified rewards, news, sales tracking, travel, and employee recognition


Impact

Created a 0>1 extranet to work along side outdated intranet systems, increasing employee participation and internal communications across Dell’s European teams

Technology, design, web, SAAS, ecommerce

Made at Blaze

Case coming soon

iSalon EPOS

Extensive UX/UI modernisation
 of a feature-rich retail EPOS to enable a more streamlined app-like experience and integration with touchscreen hardware for 50,000 end-users

Accomplished

Led UX and UI transformation of a long-established, industry-leading EPOS system used in thousands of stores, salons, and hotels
 acros EMEA

By doing

Conducted user research and synthesised feedback to define findings and priorities. Redesigned the complex interface to be more learnable, app-like and touch-optimised for new ergonomic hardware


Impact

A new visual design was crucial in a competitive environment to increase sales, subscriptions and reduce attrition. Enhanced usability which shortened learning curves for 50,000 staff. The initiative invigorated the company, while supporting the move to new integrated hardware with touchscreens

Retail, design, Windows, SAAS

Made at SSSL

Case coming soon

Customer bookings platform

Adaptable, conversion-rate-optimised B2C website, built-in bookings engine, and bespoke CMS - As used by SMBs and chains across EMEA, and their 4 million end-clients

Accomplished

Designed a mobile-first website with fully integrated booking system for businesses with or without an online presence


By doing

Built a scalable, configurable website platform with included and customisable themses. A self-service CMS and CRM-connected bookings for single or multi-location businesses


Impact

A flexible platform used by thousands of businesses to run bookings online and integrate their customer journeys into broader retail operations. Used by 4 million end-clients across EMEA

Ecommerce, design, web, SAAS

Made at SSSL

Case coming soon

Productivity and data software

Modular business software

0>1 product development
 and design of a centralised business management cloud application. Now the company's primary product, used by 1000s of businesses across EMEA

Accomplished

Led product defination and feature set. Architected the design and user flows for a unified web application to replace legacy desktop software


By doing

Orchestrated user flows, UX, and visual design. Following prototypes I built initial MVP in HTML. Working within a small dev team
 we made this functions by using ReactJS. After go-live, a full web development team was built

Impact

Delivered a modular SaaS platform that became the company’s primary product. With flexible configuration options, this is now used by thousands of small businesses and larger chains across EMEA

Business, design, web, SAAS

Made at SSSL

Case coming soon

Visual Appointment Planner

Reimagining appointment, staff and resource management with a flexible and tactile UI/UX redesign

Accomplished

Used research insights to redesign a scalable appointment planner system for businesses to take care of various scheduling complexities

By doing

Designed a dual-orientation time layout (horizontal/vertical) to accommodate different user types, contextual operations, use cases, and visual accessibility needs


Impact

Improved client scheduling efficiency and user adoption by reducing interface friction and aligning tool design to real-world workflows. The design performed double-duty as a staff management tool too

Business, design, web, SAAS

Made at SSSL

Case coming soon

Analytics Reports Builder

Utilised big-data insights to design a library of the most commonly used business reports. Augmented by ability to inspect data, create, save, and export custom reports

Accomplished

Designed a library of typical reports, with flexible, real-time analytics tool to help business managers generate actionable reports on demand


By doing

Collaborated with PMs to collate reports libary. Created a user-friendly interface with customisable templates, data visualisations, data table tools, and preset scheduling (ad hoc, weekly, monthly)


Impact

Simplified complex data into digestible formats, increasing reporting efficiency and enabling non-technical users to self-serve critical insights

Business, design, web, SAAS

Made at SSSL

Case coming soon

CRM contact platform

Created a CRM with client history and marketing system with SMS and email builders. One-off and smart automations to save time, with dashbaords for trend analysis

Accomplished

Replaced manual marketing tasks with a smart customer messaging system
 for individual or bulk messages

By doing

Designed built-in SMS/email message builders, along with campaign tools with segmentation presets, custom logic, and automated scheduling

Impact

Reduced repetitive marketing workload while enabling businesses to scale personalised communications, identify trends and improve customer retention

Business, design, web, email, SMS, SAAS

Made at SSSL

Case coming soon

Customer brands

Universal Music Group

0>1 bespoke website ecosystems and creative design over a six-year period, to empower 70% of Universal Music's global stars to make their de facto digital experiences and communities for millions of fans

Accomplished

Led creative and technical delivery of UMG artist websites for established and upcoming artists, over a 6-year plus timeframe, becoming an "preferred" agency partner


By doing

Designed and maintained scalable, customisable sites for global and emerging artists while developing a bespoke CMS and community platform, supporting ecommerce, content, fan engagement

Impact

Long-term partnership, enhanced UMG’s digital reach to millions of global fans, for artists such as Amy Winehouse, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and many more. With artists returning per album cycle.

Entertainment, design, web, media, digital, email, ecommerce 

Made at The Unit

Case coming soon

O2 Telefónica

Digital and CX transformation to update and standardise ecommerce touchpoints for all of O2's telco brands, as used by 45 million customers, to see a year-on-year increase in mobile contracts

Accomplished

Led design transformation across O2's various brands in Germany, to improve ecommerce experience via web, app, in-store and support agent channels

By doing

Delivered unified customer journeys, content systems, and a multi-brand design system while improving internal design culture and delivery governance


Impact

Improved consistency and usability across all touchpoints, laying the groundwork for a scalable customer experience and more efficient design operations. The new platforms have since seen 164k new mobile contracts uplift

Telco, design, web, app, ecommerce

Made at BORN Group

Case coming soon

Esure Group

My initial digital advertising work led to a 5-year+ retained partnership covering design for customer, corporate and recruitment websites, as well as repeated digital campaigns for Esure, Sheilas' Wheels and broker matierals

Accomplished

Designed and managed the complete digital estate for Esure, Sheilas’ Wheels, and broker channels under a long-term retainer


By doing

Delivered integrated brand, acquisition, and customer retention campaigns across web, email, advertising, and printed matter


Impact

Contributed to sustained business growth across motor, home, and travel insurance through cohesive digital strategy and customer experience improvements

Financial services, design, web, email, digital

Made at The Unit

Case coming soon

Family Investments (OneFamily)

Brand-led digital evolution of all customer touchpoints including website, advertising and communications, as the business grew to offer more financial products and attain more customers 

Accomplished

Designed and evolved digital communications over six years during Family Investments

By doing

Led website redesign, advertising campaigns, and a new illustration-led brand identity across all customer touchpoints



Impact

Supported business growth from a single product to a diversified product range. Introduced new digital self-service capabilities that empowered users to manage their investments online

Financial services, design, web, email, digital

Made at The Unit

Case coming soon

UMG media streaming platform

A stop-gap media-streaming fix, that evolved into a solution with audio, video and playlist options, with millions of streams over 3 years, for over half of UMG websites

Accomplished

Delivered a proof-of-concept audio/video player solution that allowed UMG artists to host streaming content on their own websites


By doing

Designed brandable players with playlist support, paywalls, and CDN-powered delivery to handle the traffic of global fan bases


Impact

Adopted by over 70% of UMG artists including Eminem, Lady Gaga, and Take That, serving millions of streams over multiple years

Entertainment, design, web, media

Made at Blaze

Case coming soon

Mattel

Mattel wanted to run a campaign to showcase and advertise all of their many brands of recognisable toys and tie-ins

Accomplished

Created a playful, interactive digital campaign to promote Mattel’s product ranges in a new branded experience


By doing

Designed an animated carousel UI resembling a fairground ride, linking each toy horse to its ecommerce product page. The campaign was supported by a suite of animated display ads and video assets


Impact

Boosted product discovery and engagement across multiple toy ranges while enhancing brand storytelling in a fun, mobile-friendly way

Childrens, design, web, ecommerce

Made at Blaze

Case coming soon

Marketing and Creative

Email, SMS, social communications

Long-term experience designing, building and setting up comms for brands and products, sent to millions of customers

Accomplished

Designed, built and setup marketing, transactional and segmented email and SMS templates for major brand campaigns and product platforms 


By doing

Designed, built and tested HTML/plain text templates for transactional, marketing, and behavioural messaging that worked across segmentations for self-service, integrated CRM platforms, and mainstream email services.

Impact

With design for many brands, communications were sent out to millions of customers. Templates delivered for SeaWorld were recognised by the Mailchimp CEO as best-in-class, leading to an official feature on email design practice

Marketing, design, web, email, SMS

Made in all roles

Case coming soon

Typeface and iconography

Bespoke logotypes, iconography, lettering, and typeface to enhance brand projects and visual identity

Accomplished

Created custom typefaces and hand-lettered treatments for brand work and personal exploration


By doing

Used drawing, vector illustration, and experimental formats to create distinctive typographic assets


Impact

Applied in brand identities and used as a creative expression of tone and concept; part of your long-term exploration of design as storytelling

Graphics, design, communications

Made in all roles

Case coming soon

Visual Diary project

A 30-year artistic and visual documentation inspired by each day to record and reflect; leting me maintain and explore creative output, alongside applied design

Accomplished

Before I started my career, I started a daily visual documentation projects. Maintained a continuous creative discipline, and repository of ideas, narratives, and inspiration with over 10,700 daily illustrated entries since 1996


By doing

Documented life, moments, memory and visual trends through a visual diary, adapting medium, colour and subject in real time


Impact

Featured on the BBC and exhibited internationally (UK, India, Middle East, New York), this personal work inspires storytelling, experimentation, and discipline in professional projects

Illustration, design, narrative

Made at NIRM

Case coming soon

Destination/Direction

Short animated film made for an art commision that has been shown in film festivals around the world, and touring programmes across UK, India, Middle East and New York

Accomplished

For an arts commission, I wrote, illustrated and directed an animated short film about diasporas, reflecting on a personal journey from the UK to India


By doing

Created an emotionally resonant piece for an international arts project, blending narrative, illustration and motion graphics


Impact

Often selected as the opening film for Moti Roti's global touring programme; showcased at BFI (alongside Pixar’s first showing of Up!). Submarine Magazine saw it at OneDotZero festival and said it was one of their film highlights

Illustration, animation, narrative

Made at NIRM

Case coming soon