About me
I’m a freelance, senior designer based in London. I specialise in both digital and print, and have an interest in UX. I also have a background in photography and photo retouching.
Experience
I’ve been a designer since 2005, freelancer since 2010, with a 3-year permanent role at OgilvyOne from 2014-17, in between (aka the freelance sandwich).
Agencies: Rapp UK, Ogilvy, Keko London, Connected Pictures, Edelman, Squint/Opera, 360i Europe, Poke, Adam&Eve/King Henry, Proximity, Archibald Ingall Stretton, Firebelly, Redwood, AKA, Banner, Investis, Salterbaxter, and Spinnaker.
When I’m not designing I like being involved in my community through Sydenham Film Club and Sydenham Arts, finding faces everywhere, travelling, swimming, yoga, cooking, sewing and taking pictures.
Education
Master of Multimedia Design
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia (2004)
Fine Arts (Photography)
Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne (2002)
International Exchange Program
Pratt Institute, New York City (2001)
Sectors
Consumer, B2B, food, baby, healthcare, financial, government, technology, aviation, charity, automotive, beauty, fashion, luxury.
Skillset
All files and layers labelled and organised with attention to detail. Liaising with developers or printers if required.
Style and approach
If I had a style it would be clean and organised with attention to detail and user experience in mind. My approach to design is to base it on the individual needs of the project. Rather than using the latest design trends or follow a certain style, I try to put the design in context of potential customers or users, and work with clients to discover what their project is trying to achieve, and come up with designs that help them do that. I try to infuse my designs with the mood that the design needs to invoke in the end user.
On designers..
Designers aren’t just creative people that can make things pretty because they have software to do so; they are professionals who organise information, lead customers on user experiences, translate arbitrary business goals and ideas into something visual and tangible, and think about many different factors of psychology, mood, technology and context when coming up with design concepts. We work in a field that is constantly changing and expanding, while trying to make work that is stimulating and interesting for our clients and their customers (and hopefully ourselves too!).
I’m a designer who’s opposed to spec work. This means any work done on a speculative basis where a designer is asked to invest time and resources without guarantee of payment (situations such as design competitions, or ‘test’ work). Design sourced from competitions or a cheap process undervalue the expertise that designers (or others like photographers or copywriters) bring, creating an environment where they aren’t paid adequately for their work and the quality of work suffers. A race to the bottom, right? Also, what other industry would that happen in? Imagine going to the dentist and saying “If I like the work you did, I’ll pay you?”.. they’d laugh before presenting a credit card scanner. This funny video illustrates that perfectly.
It is damaging to designers and clients alike and diminishes the value of a proper design process. It can even be costly when businesses find that their new logos or designs have been ripped off somewhere else, as can happen. Or young or inexperienced designers are taken advantage of and waste hours or days of their time they really should be getting paid for. It is better to work with a designer, no matter how small a budget, to achieve designs that are suitable for the project at hand.
Just to note, however, that spec work isn’t the same as pro-bono work, where the designer agrees to work for free (perhaps for a charity or friends and family) or accept another method of payment. Large agencies also regularly pitch for work, and although that can be seen as spec work too, the process of working closely with clients during the pitch and the potential benefits of winning makes pitch work different in my opinion. Larger agencies are also more capable of absorbing the cost of pitch work and integrate that into their business model.
More information about the issues and dangers associated with spec work can be found on the No!Spec website or check out some cautionary tales on Spec Watch.
