About Me.
2019-2026
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My Story.
(01)
I didn't start in motion and it shows.
I studied typographic design and began in print and production, working at agencies of every size. When the industry moved to digital I moved with it, found motion graphics, and never looked back.
Most motion designers came up through animation. I came up through design, so I'm thinking about what a frame says before I think about how it moves. Twenty-five years in and I still love it.
The rest of this page is how I got here.
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Brand Experience.
(02)
Working with brands including Netflix, Amazon, Nike, Microsoft, Costa, Intel and Mastercard.
Alongside agencies including AKQA, VML, Adam & Eve DDB, Iris, Havas and Untold Studios.
Nike
Amazon
Microsoft
Mastercard
Costa
Philips
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History.
(03)
Twenty-five years, one throughline.
Print, then digital, then motion. Every role added something the next one needed.
2019 - Present: Freelance Motion Designer
Independent since March 2019, working as a creative lead from concept through to delivery, and as embedded support inside agency teams who need someone who can drop in and get on with it. Nike, Microsoft, Mastercard, Cisco, Vauxhall, EasyJet, Subway and Xbox. Direct for brands, and alongside agencies including AKQA, VML, Adam & Eve DDB and Havas. Best job I've had.
2013 - 2019: Senior Designer (Motion Graphics) - MRM//McCann
The agency needed motion, and I'd spent years teaching myself After Effects and Cinema 4D on courses in my own time. They promoted me to do it properly. Six years of social video, large format event displays, outdoor digital and retail. I spent nearly as long on the workflow as the work: X-Particles, Octane and Cycles 4D for Cinema 4D, Trapcode and Magic Bullet for After Effects. Twelve years of design, then motion. Not a career change, a continuation.
2011 - 2013: Studio Manager - MRM Meteorite
Meteorite merged with MRM at the end of 2011 and the client list grew. Intel and Vauxhall on top of everything I was already running. I was the studio manager, the font server and whoever fixed the large format printer. I also kept designing: print, email, digital publishing, and the first of the motion work. That last part turned out to matter.
2008 - 2011: Head of Studio - Meteorite
I joined a large central London agency as a senior creative artworker and ended up running the studio. Costa Coffee, Expedia, Royal Mail, Post Office, Jumeirah Hotels, BlackBerry, Homebase and Standard Life. I kept suggesting better ways to move work through the agency, so in 2010 they promoted me and let me do it. Managing the team, reviews, targets, training the juniors, and getting things out on time without the work suffering for it. Nothing teaches you scheduling like being the person everyone chases.
2006 - 2008: Creative Artworker - J2
My first time inside a larger agency, on projects for Oxfam and Donington Park Race Course. This is where I picked up retouching and started working on a Wacom. It's also where I learned to work to somebody else's clock. Account handlers ask for things at four in the afternoon. You find a way.
2003 - 2006: Creative Artworker - Origin 1
One of three people at the company, so I did a bit of everything. All of the artwork, and the liaising with printers and signage companies to make sure it came back the way it left. Concepts, logos, stationery and shop signage for the dentistry industry. Luxury brochures for London property developers, including some highly technical vector floor and site plans. A three-person company teaches you the parts of the job nobody puts in a job description.
2001 - 2003: Designer - Colne Press
I got the job in my final year of college, still studying typographic design, and worked around my lectures. Designing one day, preparing artwork for press the next. Print is unforgiving. Once it's on the press it's on the press, so you learn to check everything twice before it goes.
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Studio
(04)
Where it actually happens.
A home studio in Surrey, thirty-five minutes from central London. Mac and PC side by side.
After Effects, Cinema 4D, Illustrator and Photoshop most days. Rive, Lottie & Framer when the job calls for them. Twenty-five years in and I'm always learning, because the tools keep moving but the fundamentals don't.
Available for remote work worldwide, and on site in London when a project needs a person in the room.
