The design partner behind iCentric and the products they build.
What started as an outsourced design project on a single client website turned into a full creative partnership. Five years in, we're embedded in the iCentric setup as the design team they hand briefs to, whether that's work for iCentric themselves or for the clients they're building software for.
How we did it →
Who are iCentric?
iCentric is a digital transformation and bespoke software development agency, building enterprise-grade applications for clients across the UK and beyond. Founded in 2004, they operate out of offices in London and Bedford with a team of senior developers covering the full modern stack, from front-end frameworks to cloud infrastructure and AI tooling.
In plain terms: businesses come to iCentric when they need bespoke software built, modernised or extended. Past clients include the likes of Travelodge, Fujifilm, Mott MacDonald and the United Nations. What iCentric do extraordinarily well is engineering. What they don't always have in-house is a dedicated design and UI team. That's where we come in.
“Fantastic service, can’t recommend highly enough.”
What we've done together
We work as an embedded part of the iCentric setup. Some projects are for iCentric directly. Others are for the clients iCentric are building for, with us handling the design and UI side while their developers handle the build.
A full suite of digital design support.
Because iCentric build software, our work for them is predominantly digital. An overview of what that's looked like over five years:
Website Design
Across iCentric's own website and the client sites they build, from initial concept through to handover-ready designs.
App Design
Shaping the visual identity of client applications, from concept stage all the way through to live product.
UX/UI Focus
User experience sits at the heart of everything we hand back, whether that's a small flow fix or a full product redesign.
Photo Editing
Editing and retouching photography that needs to sit cleanly alongside a client's digital presence.
Prototyping
Building complex, interactive prototypes that clients can review and tweak before anything gets handed over to engineering.
Built the visual identity for iCentric's own website.
Once iCentric had simplified the service offering and tightened the messaging, we built the visual identity for the new site. The goal: a digital presence that looked like the kind of agency you'd actually want building your software. Modern, considered, and a clear step on from where they'd been.
Helped redesign a hotel chain's booking flow.
One project in particular: redesigning the UI of the booking flow for a well-known hotel chain. We dug into where users were getting stuck, then reworked the journey end to end so people could search, compare and book without unnecessary friction.
Search Page
Rebuilt to make better use of space, surface the information that actually matters, and show critical detail without forcing users to click through.
Hotel Page
Information regrouped, tabs reworked, and the things users were hunting for moved earlier in the journey.
Booking Amendments
A simpler, faster route for users to make changes to a booking once it's been made.
Turned product pitches into short, sharp videos.
When iCentric pitch a new product to a prospective client, a static spec doc only gets you so far. So we take the initial UI mockups (built from iCentric's spec) and turn them into product-first videos that show the work in motion. Same content the spec covers, just easier for a prospect to actually engage with.
“I worked with Hive Creative Media on a project and couldn’t have received better service. Hope to work together again in the future.”
Why the retainer works
This is what an outsourced design team looks like for a software development agency.
No briefing a new freelancer every time a client project needs UI work. No design becoming the bottleneck on a build with a hard deadline. No mismatched aesthetic across the products iCentric ship.
We know how iCentric work. We know the kind of clients they pitch to. We know how to hand off designs in a way their developers can actually build from. So when a project needs design firepower, whether that's a redesign, a pitch video, a prototype or a piece of client UI, we just make it.
For a software agency taking on bespoke client work, that kind of plug-in design capability isn't a nice-to-have. It's how the work actually gets shipped.
Visual Identity · Website Design · App Design · UX/UI Support · Prototyping · Video Editing · Motion Assets · Photo Editing · Case Studies
Studio: Hive Creative
More of our work
A selection of other projects and partnerships we've been part of — from brand identities and websites to campaigns and creative support.
Building the brand behind Kernel's growth.
What began as a handful of quick-turnaround display ads grew pretty naturally into a full creative p... Read more
A flexible creative team for Etex and its family of brands.
What started as a social retainer with one sub brand grew into a three-year creative partnership spa... Read more
Helping Rugby Borough Council communicate with its community.
A single Net Zero branding project opened the door to a five-year creative partnership with Rugby Bo... Read more
Start a project
Interested in working with us? Tell us a bit about what you're building and we'll be in touch.
hello@hivecreativemedia.co.uk