My work and expertise

My skills and work cover print and new media. Be it four colour process, spot colour print or pixels and code for the web, I’ve done the lot. Here’s an overview of my main areas of expertise.

Packaging

My first ever job was packaging artwork, and since then I have done years of work in the field. From working with designers to bring the initial proposed ideas to life, to the final artwork. I have worked on projects for many leading FMCG brands.

I have an in-depth appreciation of the different print processes and what they can achieve. I have been involved in creating artwork with spot colours, including spot colours in Photoshop, foils, varnishes, embossing, debossing and even artworks with all these finishes in one file.

Reports and brochures

Long documents, master pages, proper style sheets, all those boxes are ticked. If it's graphs, charts and infographics you need then i have many, many years of experience creating these assets.

I am a stickler for doing it properly so that everything makes sense and creating version 2 next time is a breeze. I’ve done them all, from sales brochures to corporate accounts, marketing materials and catalogues. Structure and discipline is a must, but also the need to bring creativity and clean design to the task.

Maps and floorplans

I have recreated many, many floorplans and maps for clients such as J2, Hunter Design and we-do-co.com. From turning an unattractive architectural CAD file into a cleaner and well-designed diagram, to creating street and road diagrams from Google maps, stripping out the extraneous detail and focuses on the important details.

Online advertising and social media

This is an increasingly important part of my work. Creating online assets requires a knowledge of how these platforms work and an adherence to the specification both Google and the various social media platforms require. Attention to detail and a fast turnaround are crucial to this type of work.

Presentations

This most often means PowerPoint, but increasingly Keynote. I have to admit that PowerPoint is definitely not my favourite program, but it is ubiquitous. I have done dozens of presentation files and corporate templates. Setting the font and colour theme, setting up master slides and ensuring that the typography and layouts can create a clean basis for ongoing presentations.

Interactive PDFs

If you want the interactivity then a printed job can never achieve, then interactive PDFs are just the job. Easy to distribute and easy to update whenever changes are needed. Navigation buttons, embedded movies and hyperlinks that open up more information on the web are all things that a PDF can provide. I’ve done dozens of these and have overcome all the many quirks and obstacles that they can sometimes throw up, I’ve got my interactive technique down to a tee.

Point of Sale

From big brand consumer food to power tools, from posters and banners to shelf strips and wobblers I have been creating POS designs and artwork for years. From initial mock up visuals to the final print artwork and one off pieces to a whole range of promotional material.

E-shots

Always a challenge, because they are just like web pages, only the ubiquitous  Microsoft Outlook insists that you create them using the web know-how you used 15 years ago. I’ve created dozens of them and faced the challenge of getting the design to play well with Outlook’s many deficiencies and quirks. Added to that is the need to make emails responsive across devices. If you just need a design for an EDM, but not the coding I can create these in Sketch.

Web

From mocking up websites to creating full web pages and layouts for database-driven sites. It’s a constant learning process and one where my skills are constantly growing. I am no programmer, but from setting up the CSS to layout a site, to tweaking javascript - I’m not a web pro but have plenty of experience creating website layouts and getting them built and tested. While working for the Chartered Institute of Marketing, I created page and site designs for their CMS system, creating the desktop design and then working with the front end team to create responsive web pages.

Visualisation

There’s one thing I love more than anything else and that’s creating visuals. Creating something that is more than the sum of its parts is a sheer joy. A bit of Illustrator, with the added spice of Photoshop is just like cooking but is a visual recipe like a new dish you just invented. Helping to bring a designers ideas to life is, well, my lifeblood. It really stretches your creative skills and creates something you can finally press the save button and be proud of the result.

Retouching

I just love Photoshop and could just spend all day with it. If it's just a simple retouching job or a full on effort to create something that simply does not exists then I am right on it. Bringing a dull photo to life, altering the colour of a product or creating a visual from scratch, I just love a demanding Photoshop job.