Ella Britten-Jones
Writing, design, film, product and software — Sydney
Nearly four years at MECCA taught me to ask better questions — and notice the problems people had learned to work around.
I follow the thread from first observation through writing, design, film and whatever needs to be built.
The working desk behind VESSEL — containers, sketches, specification drawings and material swatches surrounding the system in development.
Working at MECCA taught me how much you can learn by genuinely listening to people.
I loved asking questions, listening for what someone actually needed and finding the right solution with them. Over time, the same frustrations and workarounds began appearing in completely different conversations.
People were already finding their own workarounds. I started wondering whether there was a better one.
Neither customer named the problem. The work was finding the story underneath what they said.
Two customers, on two consecutive days, arrived at the same unsolved problem from opposite directions. Neither of them met. I served both.
The first was preparing for three weeks abroad. Weight-conscious and methodical, she wanted her existing routine in travel format and found, brand by brand, that it did not exist. Her SPF was a dropper serum. She rejected supermarket decanting bottles because they leaked and because a squeeze top cannot reproduce a pipette. She left with a set of travel minis that were not the products she uses. What she needed was format-specific refillable containers.
The next day a man came in to replace a cleanser airport security had confiscated in Europe for exceeding the carry-on limit. He could not have told you the capacity of the bottle he lost. What he needed was carry-on compliance communicated on the container itself.
Two customers could have been an anecdote. Over the following months I served the same two behaviours repeatedly: people quietly abandoning the products whose application method could not be reproduced, and people guessing at capacity until something was taken off them. Neither group ever described a problem with travel bottles. Both were adapting their behaviour around one.
The dependency underneath both patterns is the same. A travel routine only survives if the container preserves the way the product is applied, and if carry-on compliance can be verified at a glance. Every existing option failed at least one of those.
That became VESSEL.
VESSEL V1 — PRE-LAUNCH
A hanging travel skincare system with a container matched to each way a product is actually applied.
A real physical product I conceived and designed, developed directly with a manufacturer in China. Physical samples have been manufactured, received, tested and iterated.
Matched refillable containers, decanting tools and an interior mirror complete the system. Carry-on capacities are printed directly onto each container.
Watch the VESSEL film — 1 min 20What travelling with your existing skincare usually looks like.
Pump / cleanser · Dropper / serum + facial oil · Jar / moisturiser · Tube / SPF · Atomiser / fragrance
Completed master film · 1 min 20
The VESSEL master film, for the travel skincare system I’m developing. It follows a familiar routine from home, through packing and the airport, to a new destination — making the product’s purpose tangible through an everyday story.
I chose to tell the product through a familiar ritual — home, packing, the airport, a new destination — rather than through a feature list.
My role: product concept, campaign brief, visual references and creative direction.
I used ChatGPT and Higgsfield to develop and produce the film, guiding the narrative and refining how the product was represented. AI supported the footage generation and edit; the creative brief began with the problem I wanted VESSEL to solve.
Brand storytelling · Creative direction · AI-assisted production
Premium 5-pocket organiser
Five containers. Five places.
The first sells a bag. The second describes what happens when you open it.
The positioning named the mechanism rather than only the benefit: preserving how each product is applied. That language is defensible because it depends on a product decision, not a copy decision.
01Protecting the product
The film was assembled from many separate generations, so I kept three sources of authority: the story map owned the story, canonical product references owned VESSEL itself, and action boards owned each shot. Newer takes were not automatically better. Generations that invented a flap or clasp, moved the hygiene pouch to the front, showed the hook while the bag was closed, changed the five-container system or folded the bag impossibly were rejected — however polished they looked. Product accuracy mattered more than novelty.
02One world from separate scenes
Each scene was generated on its own, so continuity had to be directed: the robe at home, the airport clothing, the evening dress, hair, jewellery, the bathroom materials, and where VESSEL was and what state it was in at every moment. At the airport, the closed bag travels clean-front-up with the pouch attached at the rear and no hook showing — takes that confused that geography didn’t tell the intended story and were excluded.
03Choreography first, editing last
The five formats each have their own physical grammar. Fragrance needed a real funnel transfer, then a believable remove, uncap, spray, recap and return; cleanser and serum needed their own reach, use and return. What remained — audio sync, sequencing, a repetitive decant-and-pouch rhythm — was solved by auditing the takes I already had and editing, rather than generating more. The full master was reviewed end to end until story, product accuracy, continuity and pacing all held.
AI expanded what I could execute. What was true, what was wrong and what stayed was mine to decide.
I started using AI less as an answer machine and more as something to argue with. It gave me a fast way to challenge assumptions, expose gaps in my reasoning and test whether the idea still held up when I pushed against it.
I tested the competitive landscape, customer behaviour, positioning and economics against evidence strong enough to change my mind. Sometimes, it did.
Pre-launch model
Pre-launch assumptions, not performance data.
~AUD $28~AUD $53
My first landed-cost estimate was around AUD $28 a unit. Proper benchmarking put it closer to $53 — and showed I had left fulfilment out of the model entirely. I kept the worse number and rebuilt around it.
My core hypothesisRanked fifth
Ranked against the strength of the evidence, the problem VESSEL is built around — products losing the format they are meant to be applied in — came fifth. I left it where the evidence put it.
The market view, financial range and ranked customer problems show where the case is strong — and where it is still only a hypothesis.
Swipe to read every year →
VESSEL GamePlan, Section 01 — The Market Opportunity.
Swipe to compare all scenarios →
| Blended gross margin | 2,500 (−40%) | 3,300 (−21%) | 4,200 (base) | 5,000 (+19%) | 6,000 (+43%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 66% | $48K | $162K | $248K | $316K | $398K |
| 69% | $75K | $196K | $292K | $368K | $462K |
| 72% (base) | $104K | $232K | $416KBase | $520K | $652K |
| 75% | $132K | $268K | $460K | $572K | $718K |
| 78% | $162K | $306K | $506K | $630K | $790K |
VESSEL V1 Financial Analysis, Section 07 — Sensitivity Analysis.
VESSEL’s own core hypothesis ranked fifth — and I left it there
I ranked each frustration by the strength of its evidence. The problem VESSEL is built around — products losing the format they’re meant to be applied in — came fifth, with the least proof. I left it where the evidence put it.
Swipe to compare all columns →
| # | Frustration | Intensity | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Leaking products damaging clothes and luggage | High | Strong — most cited problem across sources |
| 2 | Security confiscation of over-limit products | High | Strong — frequently cited, financial and emotional cost |
| 3 | Routine disruption — skipping or switching products | High | Strong — Mintel & Euromonitor 2025 |
| 4 | Pre-trip packing stress | Med-high | Qualitative — recurring in consumer journals |
| 5 | Application method compromise — the format problem | Med-high | Qualitative — VESSEL’s core hypothesis, unproven at scale |
| 6 | Product waste from partially used minis | Medium | Qualitative — consistent but background |
| 7 | Bathroom clutter and disorganisation | Medium | Qualitative — functional, not emotional |
| 8 | Travel minis unavailable for some premium products | Medium | Qualitative — category-specific |
Source — VESSEL Mini Tax Report, Section 03.
No contacts, no introductions, no idea how any of it worked. I started reaching out to manufacturers, learning what questions to ask and getting better at separating someone who could make a bag from someone who could actually make VESSEL.
I narrowed the search to three manufacturers and assessed them against the same requirements. Margaret in Fujian ultimately stood out because she engaged with the specification itself — questioning dimensions, tolerances and construction rather than simply sending back a quote.
A render is a wish. A specification is something a stranger can build from.
These drawings and tolerance rules turn the product idea into instructions another person can make and inspect.
The master sheet brings the open-bag architecture, closed dimensions, pocket assignments, tolerance strategy and prohibited failure modes into one factory-facing reference.
A full side section defines the 35 cm open height, compartment depths, material stack and the compression-plus-base-support principle that keeps the containers upright.
The closed-bag section shows how the shell, optional foam, structural board, lining and pocket panel combine — and makes clear that depth is controlled by structure, not fabric tightness.
Function-critical pocket widths hold to ±1 mm across the full panel, everything else to ±3 mm, and nothing about the materials or construction changes without written approval.
A cross-section translating the locked product principle into forces, load paths and measurable geometry: elastic compression aligns each container against the back wall while the base ledge carries its weight.
A sequenced factory instruction showing how the structural board is enclosed, where the pocket panel is attached and which shortcuts would compromise alignment, rigidity or function.
The same retention principle resolved for the standard, cleanser and moisturiser pockets, with distinct ledge heights and tension requirements where container geometry demanded them.
Selected pages from a 36-page manufacturing specification and the sourcing record behind it. Tap any document to read it at full size.
The bag and refillable containers were developed through separate manufacturing paths. I started with the bag so I could test the complete system using off-the-shelf containers — refining the layout, storage and pocket dimensions before committing to custom containers designed precisely to fit them.
Some of it was wrong.
Parts of the sample had been manufactured outside specification. Pocket dimensions were off and some of the test containers didn't fit properly. Physical testing also exposed details that couldn't be fully understood on paper.
I documented every deviation, photographed the evidence and changed the way tolerances were communicated — separating the dimensions that controlled whether VESSEL actually worked from those where the manufacturer could have more room.
Once VESSEL was physical, people could respond to something real. I used quick Instagram polls with friends to ask what they packed, how they packed it and what they wanted kept together or separate. Some answers shaped V1; others became questions to carry forward.
The first sample made me rethink storage. Rather than making VESSEL bigger, I designed a detachable hygiene pouch: divided storage for toothbrush and toothpaste on one side, and a razor on the other. I put it back to the research group; the directional response informed its inclusion in V1.
Small, self-selected research group. Directional response, not validation.
V1 developed through specification, sampling, physical testing and iteration.
Refining the system through further sampling, testing and manufacturing development.
Keep testing the premise while V1 is still in sampling, then finalise the bag and hygiene pouch and develop the fitted container set with a specialist supplier.
Two products can look alike without sharing a manufacturing origin. SOURCE IT treats resemblance as a lead, not a conclusion, and keeps confidence and supporting evidence visible.
Working prototype using demo data. Live search is not connected; commercial launch, sourcing accuracy, customers and supplier partnerships have not been validated.
Read the SOURCE IT case study →
Working face to face with customers taught me to notice what people do, what they work around and what they do not always think to say out loud.
When a pattern stays with me, I try to understand it properly, challenge my first answer and make something that can be tested.
Tell me what you’re working on.
Much of my work has happened close to people: listening carefully, sharing what I know and helping someone else move forward.