Simplify the complex, breath personality into the bland, and establish a brand system your team can use with ease and clarity. Whether you are starting from scratch or evolving what exists, through in-depth investigation and conversation, let's forge a strong identity that knocks your competitors for six.
Exploit the failings and oversights of your competitors and pull in more loyal customers via a seamless, stress-free web experience. Direct customers to defined goals, expand your brand’s reach and unique power, and unlock new digital strategies that make your customers and your bank account happy.
For when you're struggling to get ahead of your competitors. Full-scale research, strategy and consulting to bring light to what you're overlooking, where you can have the greatest impact, and what moves you can make to have your competitors scrambling.
For when Google Fonts or a commercial typeface just doesn’t cut it. Find your visual voice with bespoke typography that amplifies your brand’s personality. An effective and often overlooked method for disentangling yourself from competitors.
Design for people, not designers
Do not become caught up with trying to impress your peers. They are not who you are designing for. Design for people who are looking to achieve a defined result.
Grounded design, not pretty speculation
Visuals play a big part in a design but the are not the design. Research, investigation and strategic / logical thinking are the basis of design.
Awards mean nothing; results are everything
Do not strive for trophies that comfort your ego, they are empty. Instead, focus on results and not only will your target audience experience fulfillment, but so too will you.
Be a partner, not a pawn
Designers are often used as pawns to build the dreams of others. Work for equity or ensure you are building your own dreams too.
Conversation breeds clarity and is critical for project success. It allows me to define pain points and constraints that plague you, update myself with past research and strategies and connect with your team to understand their roles. On a personal level, it helps me to fine-tune my mind to your visions wavelength and understand your motives and end goal. Finally, if we happen to be a mismatch, you’ll have a package of information that allows you to fast-track collaboration with a better-suited designer.
A full-scale analysis: Find competitor weaknesses to exploit, highlight your own to fix them and define customer purchase motivations. We will build up a general profile of your industry, identify how to maximise your resources and capabilities, test and question the foundations of how business is conducted, and translate the complexities of your product into clear and simple statements for better customer comprehension.
Fuse conversation and investigation into powerful products, strategies, experiences and systems. No fluff and no unsupported speculation; every design decision will be grounded in the efforts we’ve made in the previous methods. If you have opted out of the previous steps, as much as I will attempt to mitigate the effects of this, we will reap what we sowed — we will be in the realm of pretty and almost removed from the world of design.
Review, adjust and maintain products, designs, systems, strategies and language to ensure all is working as planned. The designs produced have your independence and freedom of further services in mind, however, this does not mean I aim to complete the project and wipe my hands of you. Think of me as a partner in the background helping you find-tune or build upon the designs we have already created. I’m here to help you outshine your competitors, delight your customers and help you succeed.
I’m a business-minded designer; a builder and an optimiser. I love hunting for opportunities overlooked by competitors and taking full advantage with products, experiences, brands and systems. Coming from a poor British background, the ability to extract greater value from limited resources comes more naturally to me. It’s no doubt a core reason for my analytical mindset and my instinctual drive to observe. I find a pure thrill in solving problems that stump others, and I’m obsessed with learning and becoming less stupid.
I constantly find myself questioning the reason why myself and others do what we do, and this of course lead me to my interest in history and philosophy. While I love swimming in the realm of details found in design, I’m very much a practical and big picture thinker. I act in accordance with priority, focusing on making the most of time with MVPs and stopping once a point of diminishing returns is hit. In this way, you could argue I think more like a businessperson or an engineer rather than as a typical graphic designer.
There’s something magical about diving deep into research on a complex topic, and then formulating that into a simplified explanation the majority of people could understand quickly. To boil down the excess and be left with a powerful statement or knowledge accessible to all. This is something I both aim for and pride myself in. I also make great efforts to live in such a way that serves as a positive influence to those around me, whether in my immediate circle or floating around on the internet. This is both so I can be proud of how I’ve lived my life, but also to serve as a solid role model to my younger siblings.
Outside of design or more serious topics, I retain my status of an oddball. I love to free myself from a desk or a screen, to get out and walk, even if it is just the local park I’ve strolled in 100s of times. When I’m not in an intense focus mode, gaming proves to keep me child-like and free to explore new worlds — The Witcher, Deus Ex, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last of Us, and the Souls games all hold a place in my heart.
If, for whatever reason, you wish to know more about me or how I think, you can read my writing and thoughts about a myriad of topics in Articles and Writings. You can also check out what books I’ve read in this website’s Book Library.
