Owen Priestley

Blog posts

• Membership organisations in 2026: what we learned in 2025 and what's next
  09/03/2026

  As we step further into 2026, it's worth reflecting on what the past year taught us about member engagement, retention, and the evolving expectations of membership organisations

• What 2026 holds for Nonprofits and NGOs
  20/01/2026

  With over two decades of experience working alongside nonprofits and NGOs, we've learned that predicting the future in this sector is never straightforward

• Building active communities: A guide to member engagement
  14/07/2025

  After two decades of helping membership organisations improve and streamline their digital offering, one thing that stands out is that there's no one-size-fits-all solution to member engagement.

• Beyond the numbers: overcoming challenges in measuring impact
  03/03/2025

  For many of the organisations we work with, measuring impact is a critical component of an organisation's success. However proving effectiveness isn't always straightforward, and is often a challenge.

• What the rest of 2025 holds for Nonprofits and NGOs
  12/02/2025

  I am a little late as it's half way through February, but if I had posted this in early January it would have been a very different post. So a little late, but here are my thoughts on what the rest of 2025 holds for nonprofits and...

• The environmental impact of AI: challenges and solutions for a sustainable future
  20/11/2024

  Similar to many digital agencies, Liquid Light has been exploring the capabilities of AI for quite some time now, integrating it into our own internal processes, and working on several AI based projects for our clients.

• Discovering your audience: tools and techniques
  01/10/2024

  Understanding your audience is a strategic cornerstone for building successful online products. A crucial part of our discovery phase here at Liquid Light is understanding who will be using the products we build and how they...

• What 2024 holds for Nonprofits and NGOs
  17/01/2024

  In 2024, Nonprofits and NGOs are navigating a particularly complex and rapidly changing environment. Below I delve into some of the key issues that I feel will be shaping the Nonprofit and NGO sector in 2024.

• Why developing your brand is essential for Nonprofits, development organisations and NGOs
  10/07/2023

  Why ‘brand’ isn't a dirty word. Build trust among stakeholders and help people to understand how your organisation aligns with their values.

• Building communities and enabling collaboration: tools and techniques for your website or intranet
  21/03/2023

  How nonprofits and NGOs can energise their audience and give them a platform to communicate, collaborate and share experiences and resources.

• Building a sustainable future - how web development teams can create sustainable digital ecosystems
  01/12/2022

  How can digital designers and developers design sustainable websites, apps and digital products?

• Why storytelling is essential for NGOs and Nonprofits
  03/10/2022

  NGOs and Nonprofits should already know that narratives and stories are perfect for building empathy and providing relevance, but how do we lose sight of their importance?

• Why we filter out spam bots from Google Analytics data
  20/07/2021

  We recently took on a client whose previous agency was very focused on using Google Analytics to drive development decisions. It was good to have a new client that understood the importance of measuring performance with quantitative data such as Google Analytics.

• Books for designers: In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
  21/01/2020

  As a designer I have an interest in perception - not specifically from a visual design point of view, but more the cultural differences in the perception of everyday objects, the spaces we occupy and how we interact with them ...

• Complexity in our complex world: how designers can tame complexity
  09/01/2020

  Elegance and ease of use are often down to simplicity, not just in terms of design and aesthetics, but also features and functions. If a product only has a few features it’s usually easier to understand and operate ...

• The technical challenges in building a data portal
  12/04/2019

  We recently designed and built a data portal which collects disaggregated data from multiple sources from 40 countries for Leonard Cheshire and The Department for International Development. This data is presented on the portal in a series of visualizations across 16 development indicators, grouped into the four themes of inclusive education, economic empowerment, technology/innovation and stigma/discrimination.

• TYPO3 & Search Engine Optimisation
  20/09/2018

  The sites we build in our preferred CMS, TYPO3, are always optimised with search engine optimisation (SEO) in mind. Since the launch of Google Lighthouse we take great pleasure in seeing our sites get that 100% score - giving us a nice warm feeling, knowing that Google rates our sites in such a way.

• Brand frameworks: Creating and managing a coherent brand strategy
  13/02/2018

  Here at Liquid Light we build websites. But this is a very simplistic summary of the services we offer to our clients, and in today's competitive landscape to build a successful website that differentiates from competitors and...

• A starter's guide to web accessibility
  13/06/2017

  Digital is now the new normal, and your online presence can often be the first point of contact a customer has with your brand. Just as high street stores have to cater for the needs of the physically impaired, businesses also need to ensure that their sites are accessible to everyone, including those who might have disabilities or physical impairments which might affect how they interact with websites or digital products.

• Branding banks - austerity and the rise of the banking startup
  27/03/2017

  In these times of post-brexit uncertainty it seems the banking industry is ripe for a little disruption. Seen as the architects of the 2008 financial meltdown and the resulting state-sponsored austerity we are all living in, the reputation of banks and bankers is at rock bottom in spite of the government's best efforts to deflect blame and responsibility away from the banking sector.

• If your UX is killing innovation, you are doing your UX wrong
  24/10/2016

  I didn't see Espen Brunborg talk at this year's Reasons to conference, but my colleague Matt did - he came back to the studio and sent me a link to this screen in Brunborg’s presentation, showing two conflicting sets of values that are attributed to ‘good’ design and it immediately made me think of the accusations that seems to becoming louder in our industry: that User Experience (UX) methodology is homogenising design and the use of conventions and patterns is knocking out innovation and creativity in web design.

• An introduction to Personas
  14/09/2016

  As a designer mentored in user-centric design agencies I have always had an interest in user centric methodology, methodologies that now commonly come under the banner of User Experience (UX).

• Liquid Light mentoring at UXBrighton Career Clinic
  06/09/2016

  Making the first steps in your preferred career is always a scary endeavor. Luckily, advice is at hand, particularly if you are considering a career in UX and you can get to Brighton on the evening of the 13th September for this year’s UXbrighton career clinic.

• Storytelling in the design process
  16/08/2016

  Used as part of the design and development process of digital products and services, stories are a useful tool for designers to communicate ideas and concepts to both clients and development teams in a lean and low fidelity manner.