About

I'm a Brighton-based graphic designer and illustrator. I've spent more than 26 years helping organisations communicate through design.

How I got here

I started out in the early 2000s, creating Flash animations and working on the first Channel 4 Big Brother website. After that I spent ten years as Senior Art Director at Brightwave, where I worked across everything from learning experiences and marketing campaigns to a complete rebrand of the company itself. I even chose the colours for the office refurbishment!

Since becoming freelance in 2018, no two weeks have looked the same. One week I might be designing a homelessness guide for Westminster City Council, the next I'm creating the user interface for a virtual reality escape room, or designing a logo for an interactive robot jukebox. That's one of the things I love most about freelancing. Every project teaches me something new.

Running my own business has also meant wearing lots of different hats. Alongside the design work, I've learned about marketing, quoting, invoicing and everything else that goes into being self-employed. I never really know what's coming next, and that's what keeps it interesting.

What I enjoy

I like setting myself creative challenges, like drawing people for 100 days or drawing every day using only three materials. Having a few constraints to work within stops me overthinking and gives me a starting point, much like a design brief.

Living in Brighton means I'm never short of something to sketch or photograph. One of my latest projects started after watching drone footage of Brighton Pier. Seeing it from above made me notice the patterns created by the rides and striped tents, which led to an abstract print that I'm now planning to turn into an embroidered piece. There's usually a personal side project bubbling away in the background.

How I work

Most projects don't arrive neatly packaged. They often begin as a rough brief, a pile of notes or a conversation where someone says, "We're not quite sure what this should look like yet." That's the bit I enjoy most. I like working with people to shape ideas into something that's clear and easy to understand. I enjoy asking questions, getting to the heart of what someone's trying to communicate, then finding the right way to bring it to life. 

Day to day I work mainly in Adobe CC Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. I'm also learning Figma and, somewhat to my own surprise, I've become rather fond of PowerPoint.