Jonny is a presenter, designer, theatre person and occasional theme park nerd from the North East.
As a designer, Jonny taught himself to use photoshop at school, back when we resembled Justin Bieber circa 2007 and had aspirations of a career in the West End. After dislocating his knee in a dance rehearsal, he began volunteering at the multi-award winning Spark FM at Sunderland University. It was through Spark that Jonny began designing everything from roller banners to bright orange marquees, completing a full rebrand of the station within his first 12 months. The rebrand earned a Student Radio Award for Best Marketing and led to further commissions with the University of Sunderland and its innovative mediaHUB. Jonarc was set up in 2016 following 3 years of freelance work for a large range of clients. His continuing work with the Student Radio Association as their Design and Brand officer led to his induction as an Honorary Life Member of the association in 2017.
When not buried in Photoshop, Jonny is an award-winning radio presenter for Bauer Media Group. His networked Sunday afternoon show increased its reach year on year by 74% and continues to be the most listened to programme on Metro Radio’s weekend schedule. His creativity and unique outlook on life earned him multiple Student Radio Award Best Newcomer and Best Male nominations, eventually taking home Bronze in 2013.
Not content with running a business and entertaining radio listeners with terrible puns, Jonny is also an experienced theatre manager, having managed and supervised the Customer Experience department of one of the largest theatrical venues in the UK, the Sunderland Empire. Working with Disney Theatrical, Jonny was covering the Front of House manager’s role when the theatre broke box office records with its 90,000 capacity run of The Lion King.
Projects
- Miss Rory's Live Shows - Marketing DesignNewcastle's undisputed queen of comedy Miss Rory, requires marketing that packs a punch that's as fierce as her put downs. We've been delighted to create production idenities, giant phone cases for the stage design and numerous other bits of collateral to help cement Miss Rory's posotion at the top of her game.
- Spark FM - Print and Digital Branding & CollateralSunderland's youth orientated media brand, combining an award winning community radio station, free mangazine and digital video service needed to stand out. As Head of Brand for the organisation, I created 100s of assets alongside stringent brand guidelines.
- Sunderland Empire Creative Learning BrandingThe Sunderland Empire's creative learning team do some amazing, award-winning work within the community, bringing the arts into the lives of diverse groups of participants. We thought, it was only right that they look good whilst doing their awesome stuff. We developed new branding, echoing the venue's existing scheme for their groups and initiatives, creating uniform mock ups and promo posters to really show off this new branding.
- The Household of the Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall Branding & Digital AssetsWe were honoured to be invited to develop some new branding and digital assets for the residence and office of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, the iconic Clarence House. Working with His Highness’ digital department, we have created a suite of elegant and simple branding assets, anchored by the traditional insignia and heraldic badge of the Prince of Wales – the feathers. Taking our cue from the traditional colours featured on the badge, the branding uses classic purples and golds to identify communications from the household of Prince Charles and his family. Alongside a more unified suite of branding assets, we also created a series of digital templates for use on social media. Again, using the Feathers of the Prince of Wales as a focus, these new templates will allow the Prince’s digital team to provide consistent and unified posts across their channels to over 700,000 followers. With a lot of attention being placed on The Prince’s family in 2018, with the engagement and marriage of Prince Harry, these templates will be featured prominently around the world. Just in time for the festive season, we even created some special Christmassy templates for use on the @ClarenceHouse accounts.
- Seaton Delaval Arts Centre RebrandWe’d like to introduce you to our vision for Seaton Delaval Arts Centre's new branding. It’s a bold departure from the current scheme, but we hope that it’s also a bold departure in the right direction. We’ve cleaned up the branding, introducing a fresh colour palette and wave motif, echoing the various Seaton Delaval (and it’s various Seaton neighbours’) proximity to the sea. The wave however also serves an additional purpose. Look closer and it also appears to resemble the Drama and Comedy masks, the key symbol of theatrical arts, tying in the geography and heritage of the building with it’s current purpose as a centre for the arts.
- Plays In The ParksOne of our favourite regular projects. Theatrical marketing design for Plays in the Parks for the award-winning Theatre Space North East. Find out how we help TSNE tell timeless tales in the open air. Don’t let anyone tell you that Sunderland’s cultural landscape is lacking. We’re sure multi-award winning Theatre Space North East would have something to say about that, wholly incorrect statement. The innovative theatre company is dedicated to taking theatre ‘outside’ of the theatre. It’s always a pleasure to be invited back to help tell the design part of these timeless tales. From epic Shakespearean battles to delightfully silly madcap adventures for littler theatregoers, this is certainly a challenge we don’t take on lightly. We’ve been tasked with developing an overarching style for the whole season of ‘Plays in the Parks’ whilst simultaneously developing individual production treatments for each show. Working with Theatre Space’s creative team, we intertwine our design ideas into the overall look and feel of the show itself. Now a firm fixture of the summer season in Sunderland, the plays now take in an even more imposing backdrop, as the team head further north to the historic Alnwick Castle. The designs themselves, therefore, have to adapt to both marketplaces with a huge array of assets being produced for delivery across channels, including Alnwick’s huge presence.
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Work history
J
J
Creative DirectorJonarc
Sunderland, United KingdomFreelance
Operate my freelance design business with a focus on leisure, events, entertainment and hospitality clients. Previous clients include HRH The Prince of Wales, Student Radio Association and ATG. Portfolio: www.jonarc.com/our-work
Radio PresenterBauer Media
Newcastle upon Tyne, United KingdomFreelance
Present networked weekend afternoons and provide relief cover across the schedule locally and on the Bauer City Network of stations throughout England. Consistently increased listening figures for my timeslot each quarter since joining. Hosted outside broadcasts of the SimplyHealth Great North Run and the Sunderland International Airshow on site.
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Skills
- Adobe Creative Suite
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe Indesign
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe After Effects
- Graphic Design
- Branding
- Print Design
- Audio Content
- Web Design
Education
U
U
BA Hons 2:1 TV and Radio ProductionUniversity of Sunderland
- Sunderland, United Kingdom
Awards
S
S
Honorary Life MembershipStudent Radio Association
In recognition of my work and commitment to the advancement of student radio within higher education and beyond. Working tirelessly with industry stakeholders to ensure brand recognition at the highest levels and producing countless awards ceremonies, training events and conferences.