I’m a reliable, hard-working, creative and friendly designer with a wide range of experience working in agencies and as an in-house designer. I have also worked for nine years as a freelancer, mainly working directly with a variety of my own clients.
Since achieving a degree in Graphic Design, I've been working in the design industry for over 20 years, in both print and digital design.
Working on projects ranging from large printed documents, in-store TV graphics, email marketing, DM packs, branding, annual reports, websites, posters video and animation.
Project example - DM Appeal packs: Brainstorming creative ideas, based on a brief from the DM and Marketing teams, to working with printers finishing house/ mailing house to create a final pack. Coming up with multiple highly creative conceptual ideas, different formats including sizes of envelope, leaflet folding, letter, with theme flowing though the pack. Designing the pack to be engaging, audience focussed, informative and of course encouraging donations. Working closely with printers to ensure costs are kept low for production, enclosure and mailing especially with large mailings and bespoke designs and formats.
Storyboading and creating animations, HMTL5 banners and animated GIFs using Photoshop, After Effects, Adobe Animate, Illustrator, Greensock, Google Web Designer and editing video with After Effects and Premiere.
Creating wireframes and mockups, building sites in HMTL / CSS, as well as using Bootstrap, Joomla and Wordpress. Using Photoshop, Dreamweaver and email marketing software to design, create and send HTML emails (experience using Adestra, Silverpop, Campaign Monitor, dotMailer, MailChimp, Sign-Up.to).
Providing help, support and guidance, and passing on skills, knowledge and experience to other team members, especially helping to new or junior staff to settle in. Creating job specs for, interviewing and managing junior designers and a volunteer/intern. Providing mentoring support to three designers from other charities, through participation in the CharityComms Peer Support Scheme. Standing in for the Creative Lead and managing additional staff, signing off work and taking on their other duties when they are away.
Working on large scale projects such as Raise the Roof, the Olivier Awards Brochure, managing an total redesign of the Prostate Cancer biannual magazine and their Gala Dinner Brochure, Trinity School's Prospectus and A Level Subject Guides, multiple Croydon Council Local Plan documents (the longest of which was over 500 pages). Working with multiple stakeholders and suppliers, often with tight deadlines and with content coming from numerous sources. Ensuring quality, advising of problems and suggesting solutions and being adaptable to last minute changes when possible.
Remaining focussed and motivated. Being organised and especially aware of timescales and budgets. Managing client expectations, juggling multiple projects for different clients requiring strong time management skills, diplomacy, orgnaisation and negotiation. Providing advice and guidance, especially when working on building briefs together. Using initiative to problem solve or work with collaborators to utilise the skills of others.