I am a UI/UX Designer, and have recently moved across to the freelance world. To date, I have worked at a range of agencies, including Branding, start ups and Integrated Advertising.
On a daily basis I’d happily switch between InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop to create any one piece of work. As well as rapid prototyping software such as Balsamiq, Invison and Adobe XD. I’m used to working hand-in-hand with the Development team assisting with HTML, CSS and some PHP/JS to ensure that the website is pixel perfect.
My day-to-day ranged from producing initial web concepts, to full responsive roll-out, attending persona workshops to aid my site-map and wireframe production or the design and build of email templates. My work is not exclusively digital, and I have been expected to work on social campaigns, print layouts, and even interior fashion designs.
In addition to working in an agency, I work on a number of freelance projects. This gives me the opportunity to improve my communication skills, and gives me the chance to practice pitching and presenting my work.
Projects
- Williams Jet TendersROLE: AD, UX, Lead Designer & Visual Developer AGENCY: Thinking Juice SENIOR: Stew Austin (Head of Design) This brief tasked us to create, develop and host the Williams brand both online and on social media to help grow their global presence. This was first pitched for, myself leading the web project, alongside other members of the creative team who tackled press ads, brochure design, logo updates, app ideas and a suggested new look and feel for all brand photography. This was a great success, w
- Roberts Radio WebsiteROLE: AD, UX & Design AGENCY: Thinking Juice SENIOR: Stew Austin (Head of Design) To start the project, concepts were required to present to Roberts to replace their outdated current website and to essentially grow a younger audience through design and technology without alienating the less ‘techie’ people i.e. legacy listeners. This task was set to me and a fellow designer within the creative team. I started off the project by wire-framing the required pages, addressing the header structure, and how we intended the user to navigate around the site. I then rolled out this into one of the design concepts, and once I had finished, was picked up by my colleague to create a design alternative. The client loved both designs, and took elements of both, to create a new look and feel for the Roberts online brand. I led the UX on this piece, wirefram and came back in towards the end to do complete responsive rollout of the site, as well as adding in eComm functionality, and any additional ideas I could put into the work. With web, the design is only as good as the development, and unfortunately I wasn’t able to over-see the production of the website as it was managed by a client side development team which hasn’t managed to reach the sites full potential.
- Charity WorkThe Dorset Plane Pull rebrand ROLE: AD & Lead Designer AGENCY: Freelance The Dorset Plane Pull is a charity event that was set up by my family and friends due to a personal tragedy. This pushed us to create the event with the aim of raising money for the Motor Neurone Disease Association. Over the years this event has developed into what it is today, rising for multiple different charities, and has raised over £100,000 for local and national charities. This is non profit/pro-bono work, and is something I find the time to develop and push forwards as a brand. The current charity sector is very outdated when it comes to design, with not many organisations having the ability to spend money on design. I wanted to therefore push the event a lot further and really make it stand out from the crowd. This event needs to attract both business and the general public, so I have used a friendly approach, using photography to really push the event forwards. The logo was a bit challenge as it’s something that needs to have the ability to be on a small badge, or scaled up to be put on the side of a plane. This means the logo has been simplified from its existing design, and can also be used with other assets such as dates and straplines. Visit: planepull.co.uk
- PCP Website templateROLE: UX & Lead Designer AGENCY: Thinking Juice SENIOR: Guy Stradling (Digital Director) The brief for this project was to create a website template for the Premium Country Pubs that could be re-used across their 50+ pub network. The aim was to create a more uniform approach to their digital presence, while ensuring the unique feel to each of the brand sites based around content. The initial pitch stages were carried out by my Head of Design, and once initial feedback was given to the style of the site, it was then my responsibility to design the full site responsively, which included re-looking at the proposed designs and changing for best practice and fully development scope. This was a really enjoyable task for me as this was being rolled out for a large number of different sites, and needed to be able to conform to the overarching brand identity, but allow for each brand to put its own unique stamp on it. This site also included a booking process which added an e-comm style aspect to the site which was also a good challenge to allow bookings in the simplest way possible. The final aspect of this project was to create a pod template to create each element piece by piece. My task was to break down each section of the site and show how it worked on desktop, tablet and mobile, along with any required dimensions, and details a developer would need to create the project as intended as this was built in-house by the brand.
- Wyke FarmsROLE: AD & Lead Designer AGENCY: Thinking Juice SENIOR: Stew Austin (Head of Design) Wyke Farms were going through a major rebrand with Thinking Juice, and one of the major goals was to refresh their website. The primary objective of the site was to tell their story, show their brand in the true light of what it stands for – generating a business that their ancestors would be proud of as well as their children. We needed to show old and new working together, heritage and environmental concerns working hand in hand etc. I had worked on initial pitch concepts for the new site, so knew a lot about the brand when the full design came in. This site was a challenge for me as I love simple, clean designs, however that would not be applicable for this design job. This was a challenge, and i thrived off it. Not only was it something new, but it was a real technical challenge. I needed to experiment with textures, layering, and a shed load of PS effects to get it into the space you can see now. I also needed to understand the complications this would add for responsive, scalable development, as well as knock on effects to slow load times.
- Barbour Email TemplatesROLE: AD, Lead Designer & Visual Developer AGENCY: Thinking Juice SENIOR: Stew Austin (Head of Design) The brief for this job was to create individual content blocks for both Barbour and Barbour International so that they can generate numerous emailer templates. The objective was to use the same content pillars, however they should look and feel like completely unique brands. The design was broken into 13 pods that could mix and match eComm with brand messaging. This is something I designed and built (in DotMailer), and is still used for all Barbour emailers.
Work history
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Senior UI/UX DesignerSpinach
- London, United KingdomFull Time
My main role while at Spinach Design was to establish the digital team in order to develop their existing offering, and lead the larger client projects. Internally, I assisted with the overarching digital strategy for the agency and embedded a digital process, such as staging servers and the set up of code repo's. I also produced Hosting SLAs for the agency, to go alongside the introduction of a Requirements Document.
For each project, I was required to assist with the initial scoping and quoting stages of a website as well as the delivery of all web projects from initial kick off meeting, to the final line of code: including client management and presentations throughout. This meant personally handling the development process of the work and overseeing any handover to 3rd party teams or managing internal production.
On a daily basis I'd happily switch between InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop to create any one piece of work. As well as rapid prototyping software such as Balsamiq, Invison and Adobe XD. I’m used to working hand-in-hand with the Development team assisting with HTML, CSS and some PHP/JS to ensure that the website is pixel perfect.
My day-to-day ranged from producing initial web concepts, to full responsive roll-out, attending persona workshops to aid my site-map and wireframe production or the design and build of email templates.
Digital CreativeThinking Juice
- Bournemouth, United KingdomFull Time
Working in the digital production team, I was responsible to the Head of Digital with my focus on creating designs for web and digital projects, with a crossover to front-end web development.
Work was carried out to deadline and not limited to helping plan digital projects, planning user journeys and producing things like site maps and wireframes. Getting involved in support issues and helping others in my department by making recommendations on technology. Participating in creative reviews with my ideas to the team, learning new skills and finding new ways of capturing attention for the clients of Thinking Juice was a daily occurrence.
Duties in the digital creative department include, but are not limited to the following:
1. Taking creative briefs.
2. Attending creative brainstorms, adding my ideas, conceptual thinking and sharing my knowledge.
3. Creating brilliant design concepts from briefs to a high quality and to meet deadlines.
4. Producing artwork for digital media.
5. Stay up to date with developments in digital design and training to gain new skills.
6. Working fast and accurately, with the ability to manage your own time.
7. Crossover into development and other tasks which may reasonably be assigned to you.
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Skills
- UX Design
- Wireframing
- Digital Design
- Responsive Design
- Sitemap Design
- Client Communications
- UI Desgin
- Sketch
- Invision
- Adobe Create Suite
Education
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The Digital Economy: Selling Through Customer InsightThe Open University
London, United Kingdom
No matter how sophisticated your marketing is, if it doesn’t result in attracting customers, your business is set to fail.
This online course applies fresh thinking to how marketing and selling activities combine to create customers who keep coming back.
You will develop an understanding of how customer relationship management breeds business development success; critically evaluate accepted wisdom on how marketing influences customers; and learn how marketers increasingly draw on powerful information systems to build a holistic view of customers
The Online Marketing FundementalsGoogle
- London, United Kingdom
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Awards
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Consumer site of the yearWirehive 100
This was awarded for my work on Wyke Farms while at the agency Thinking Juice.'Website' Bronze Roses Creative awardThe Drum
This was awarded for the Williams Jet Tenders site created while at Thinking Juice.+ Show more