Profile

.
A 39 year old Design Team Leader, Art Director and Moving Image Maker with over 15 years experience working in broadcast, branding, content, promotions, print and digital OOH, product interaction and user experience, user interface design, digital film, photography, web and social.

I’m a bit of an adventurer / rock climber, mountain biker and more recently a very proud dad!

** IMPORTANT NOTE: There is no Chat GPT or AI within these write ups **

Design Manager (EMEA)

Leadership
As Design Manager & Team Lead I ran a team of 6 designers across 5 countries within EMEA. Working closely with Producers, Creatives and Freelancers to resource and oversee development of promos campaigns, reels, presentations, rebrands and general GFX requests.

Following the 2022 Discovery / Warner Bros merger I took on a key role in defining a new vision for combined team culture and identity – workshopping pathways and proposals for reshaping the actions of an internal creative agency. This required the unification of workflows, communication systems, resources and best practices across two legacy creative business – A huge undertaking, of which I was the architect and driving force.

Client & Agency Partnerships
Acting as client, I was the point of contact for external creative agencies, managing rebrands with the likes of Red Bee driving the review and feedback process whilst communicating updates to our commercial affiliates in the UAE.

Within WBD I was a key creative partner for the marketing, commissioning and picture-desk teams establishing strong relationships of trust and collaboration which challenged legacy departmental hierarchies. Specifically moving relationships away from the notion of client barriers and towards real creative partnerships, which was hugely beneficial in terms of managing or negating feedback, creating real operational efficiencies.

Motion Design Lead

Essential
Product Interaction & Motion Language

As Senior Product Designer, I was a part of a team working on Andy Reubens (Google Android Founder) mobile phone / home technology startup. We developed multiple interaction concepts and themes, variations on display, user interface, icons, grids, forms, animations, product behaviours, hero moments and interaction use cases. The circular nature of the home hub made it a really novel design conundrum and wonderful project to be a part of. My role specifically was motion and animation lead, creating the notion of a ‘motion language’ exploring ‘states of change’ to articulate the interaction experience.

Deutsche Welle
Broadcast & Digital Branding

Winning a pitch to rebrand Germanys Deutsche Welle news organisation, I was specifically brought on board as the broadcast design specialist to develop and deliver the on-air branding kit and peripherals. As a news organisation they wanted a strong emphasis on showing alternative or contrasting viewpoints whilst being conscious that news is a live and constantly evolving story. So we developed an on-air kit that animated as if constantly moving along a timeline. Then used Idents as an opportunity to explore or express alternative viewpoints with a simple timeline swipe between A / B content – delivering a format that could be updated daily if needed to remain topical in relation to news at the time…  My involvement was full spectrum, concept, development and implementation.

Director
Designer
Videographer
Photographer
Editor

The Boulder Project – Independent Film
www.theboulderproject.com

in 2016 I set up a photography studio on a local farm, next door to a group of woodworking friends – I was running a small outdoors brand at the time, and we were all keen rock climbers, so I suggested we pool our skills and make a little film, part fun project, part content for my brand. The concept was living at the furthest point in the UK from rocks, mountains and climbable coastline, we thought we should club together and do something about it”. All planned, filmed, interviewed, graded and edited by myself as a one-man-media-maker. The film toured outdoor festivals in the US, Canada, Ireland, Europe and UK and I was invited to talk about it in a Directors Q&A at the Kendal Mountain Film Festival.

Some Kinda Tribe – Lifestyle Brand
www.somekindatribe.com

An outdoor action-culture project, focused on activities and their derived identities. Action sports still have a tendency to remain segregated by tribal niches, rock climbers, bmxers, mountain bikers etc. I felt these were all much closer related than media or brands tended to depict so I started a little label back in 2015 to try and build a brand journey around that mission. The idea in part being to design an aesthetic derived from the activities themselves in an attempt to feel a bit more authentic or at least more appropriately related to the culture. This was a content focussed project that aimed to tap into the organic-reach opportunities of social media pre 2016.

Art Director
Designer
Animator

The majority of my career has been working in on-air promos at broadcasters like Discovery, Warner Bros, Paramount, Channel 5 and UKTV. Promos are quick turn around 30 second videos that use a mixture of live action, voiceover and captions to deliver a punchy promotional message to drive interest and viewership. These are often conceptual treatments due to scheduling timescales and show footage being unavailable.

When not managing or overseeing a production my role would usually be Designer / Art Director and Animator working collaboratively with a Creative / Copywriter. I have worked on countless promos over the years, some entirely graphical, some entirely video, some studio produced special effects shoots. I have always been involved throughout the entire production pipeline from concept to delivery, in particular providing guidance where design for post production is critical.

Creative Director

As part of my day to day work in broadcast I also work as a Key Art Campaign Creative and Director for developing the primary show imagery that represents a new or upcoming series. Usually displayed on advertising billboards, digital / social media, on-air and D2C content platforms.

Key Art Creative is something that I have enjoyed the most over the years – closely partnering with Commissioning and Marketing teams to develop a final concept and a plan, then getting onsite with talent to shoot a scene or selection of assets that we then take into post and photoshop or animate. I would always be present and heavily involved throughout entire creative process from concept to delivery.

With 15 years of experience I am a professional brand builder, media maker and all encompassing creative practitioner. From the subtle details of typography or UI icon design, to the in person complexity or an on-set talent shoot, I have a full spectrum awareness of content creation and can still function at all levels in all areas as an individual contributor. I can also step back and oversee a team at any stage of the production process, with full awareness of how these usually separate roles interconnect in order to deliver.

My experience is broad and although I don’t consider myself an extreme-hyperspecialist in any singular area I am fundamentally a creative problem solver, a big picture, blue sky thinker, keen to find solutions to everything ahead of time. I’m confident, strategic and independently minded, yet keen to collaborate at the first opportunity.

All of this sounds very serious – but I’m also a nice guy!