Design

Highfield Priory

This was an event to celebrate children leaving their junior school. The brief was to design a logo and double-sided ticket/invite. As the event name was also to be used as a hash tag for social media I had to go for a typographic solution. It also had to be in one long line as you can’t add spaces to hash tags.

The sun idea has a lot of symbolism. It can imply that the sun is setting at their time at the school, as well as symbolise a new day, new beginning as they head off on new adventures. The multicoloured rays are a metaphor for how they are all going off in different directions, on new paths, with so many diverse options and lives ahead of them; they can be anything, go anywhere, do whatever they wish.

These were variations on presentation screens. The client asked me if I could do anything for her as she had to do a presentation about the event. She had no idea about what content was going to be on the slides so I just created lots of versions for many different slide uses. Apparently they were ‘great’ and worked really well.

This was a newsletter for the PTA. The previous version was an enormously ugly thing that was obviously designed on Word using WordArt! Awful, just awful. It was aimed at the parents but also had to be appealing to the kids to hopefully get them to read it too. When I was in primary school I would have never read anything like this but maybe these kids would be forced to. The newsletter is an A4 printed sheet but had the potential to become an email version in the future so I had to design it with that in mind.

The Swan Hotel

This was a poster I designed for a live music event at The Swan Hotel. They didn't provide me with much direction or branding; the only brand work I had available was their logo. The project was pretty quick and I thought it seemed slightly simple, however, the client thought they were “amazing” and then asked for more than originally ordered. So I decided to put it in my portfolio.

She also returned months later and asked for these (shown below) Beautiful Beer award flyers and told me that customers/guests had been commenting on how much they liked the poster (above). This design was a compliment slip size, double-sided flyer to promote the fact that they had won an award for their beer from the British Bar & Pub Association. The flyer had to include the award logo and I was directed to their website to get the proper file. That site included their brand guidelines on how the logo was to be used so I had to design to flyer to accommodate this too, as well as keep to the hotel's branding.

Radio Officers’ Association

This was an A5 flyer/leaflet promoting the Radio Officers’ Association. The ROA is something to do with people that worked on ships in the navy. When they originally sent over all the images and text for the flyer I put them all on the document to see how much space they took up. I like to do this as part of my process so that I can tell how much space is needed for the text and also know which images can be smaller or bigger depending on what they depict and their level of detail. The client hadn't yet sent the embroidered insignia from the arm of their uniforms as they needed somebody to scan it in.

I struggled to see how I was going to be able to make the design work with so many images but once they emailed the final picture everything fell into place. I realised I would be able to use the diamond shape as a motif in the design, and could put the images inside diamonds as frames. I used the ship image at the bottom of the flyer as a backdrop because the majority of the photo was blue and could easily make the sky become a plain blue background. I wish more projects could have those serendipitous moments, they are far too rare, but I guess that is what makes them feel so special.

Preston North End

This was a double sided A5 flyer to promote a friendly football match between PNE and Liverpool. They provided the photographs which I had no choice over. I designed it to be reminiscent of the old-fashioned boxing fight posters where an image of each fighter was shown side-by-side in a face-off.

They had so much information to be included on the back which advertised two of their other matches but I realised that some of that info was repeated for each one. Splitting the design into three sections and putting the same info for both games in the middle section would remove the need to repeat it.

This was an illustration of Preston North End’s mascot, the Deepdale Duck. After the first version had been given the go ahead and all but finished someone decided they didn’t like it. They wanted it to look a lot fatter and more like the mascot costume (i.e. not like a duck). That’s where this version came from. In typical client fashion they asked for a revision (make him even fatter) then decided the first version was better.

Originally their sponsor was an alcohol brand (maybe Magner's) but they couldn't be seen to be advertising to minors so it was left blank. Ironically, they were OK with promoting childhood obesity to kids though. There are eight versions of the duck in various poses (pointing left/right, holding a scarf/football etc).

Athena TAC Ltd

This was business stationery for a woman who was starting her own company. The logo wasn’t designed by me, she had that done at another company but didn’t like the rest of the design work that they had done for her. I added the text for the logo though using a rounded font to give a soft, caring, helpful feel. I used the same colour scheme and theme as used in the logo.

The leaflet was designed in two colours to match the logo but then client wanted her photo adding so it had to be printed CMYK which cost her more, but that was her problem. I explained the issue but she still decided to go CMYK as it was a small print run so was printed digitally ie much cheaper. The client said that the company she was starting would be doing multiple different things and needed a way to show people what it did. The 'TAC' in the name stood for 'Training, Arts Health, and Consultancy' so the leaflet was created to be folded differently than usual. The pages aren't folded in the centre of the sheet so the edges of each page can be seen when it lays flat/closed. The words 'training, arts health' and 'consultancy' were printed down the vertical edge. The client was absolutely delighted with how they turned out.

Net66 Reports

These are a series of SEO reports and analyses I designed for net66. They have space for the url and a screenshot so the reports are tailored to each individual/potential client. The analysis one also has space for charts and graphs. It was all entered manually by me so I set up the files to make it quick and easy to fill out every time a new report was needed. They were in the future going to be automated.

The SEO analysis was for sending to prospective SEO clients. It includes statistics for a site to highlight good and bad areas of an existing site to determine where SEO can help improve it. Some of the php code for the automated versions had been written by me using another report’s code, including the pie chart section where I managed to make the different coloured boxes in the key only appear if a percentage value had been entered. I was a little impressed with myself for figuring out how to do that.

The analytics report has different sections with either a green bubble or red to show whether that particular value had increased or decreased since the previous month. The reports were eventually automated so had to be designed with that function in mind. I did a very, very small amount of the php code for the automation, mostly just the positioning of the automatically generated values and coloured bubbles.

The marketing proposal is for potential new SEO clients. The proposal details all areas of the SEO package from the research and planning stages, to descriptions of the company and its services. It was designed along with the reports to share the same look and help develop the company’s brand.

This is a slider image for the website's home page. I decided to go for a typographical style instead of showcasing some web designs. Showing a design I’d created for somebody else wouldn’t have reiterated the “Tailor made just for you” line. I had been wanting to try some more typographical illustration for a while and this worked well. The colour scheme was keeping with the company’s branding.

This slider image was for an internet marketing blog. Their colour is orange, hence the colour scheme used in the illustration. The idea behind the ill was fairly simple. Using a computer to conduct marketing over the internet lets you reach people all over the globe.

This was a redesign of the website of an SEO company. They didn’t want to mess with their rankings by altering the structure of the site though so it was more like a reskin. The background illustration came first. I used the logo’s colour scheme as my basis for the design and created the elements so that they could be coded using CSS rather than images to speed up the site.

Candy Magic

This was a logo designed for a company called Candy Magic. They provided sweets and stuff for events. They initially wanted something unimaginative like a wand with chocolates coming out of it. Luckily I’m more creative than that. Even though the name has 'magic' in it, the events are all about candy (sweets) so I decided to focus the logo on the magic part.

After a lot of sketching ideas I realised that the round sweet in a wrapper looked a lot like a rabbit’s head with whiskers, but without the ears. I love those “Aha” moments that reveal something special a few seconds after looking at a design.

I also decided to lean into the magic element of the logo with an idea for their business cards. Using playing cards instead of business cards was a fun way of leaving their contact info with people, made even more impressive if they learnt to fan out the stack of cards like a pro and then said "Pick a card". The info could be printed on sticky labels at home and stuck on real packs of playing cards as a cheap alternative to getting them professionally printed.

Below is a design for their website. The colour scheme uses the two colours from the logo as well as complementary pastel shades. I tried to use the circle motif from the logo too, as well as a ribbon-like effect to give the site a classic confectionery look. They had quite a lot of photos so I used one for a giant hero image on the main, above the fold section of the home page, as well as bullet points of the services offered, and clear calls to action of ways to get in touch with the company.

Snowball Wealth Landing Page

This was a landing page for Snowball Wealth. They had an existing page but it was not designed to match their branding. The structure also had to be changed quite a bit, particularly the main hero section. The text had to be moved around so the heading was more attention grabbing and actionable. The CTA button had to be re-written too. I changed the UVP section from a list of bullet points to four statements with large icons, and removed some negative points that were unnecessary. The two price plans were placed side by side so they were easily comparable, and I highlighted their difference as it wasn’t obvious enough. The icons for each were my creation too.

Beau Visage

This is a website for a beauty clinic. This clinic had three branches but all shared the same name and branding. The black and white logo was already created so I kept to the same monochrome colour scheme throughout the whole site. I also used a very similar webfont to their logo for all the headings. Despite being quite harsh, the black and white really helps the images to stand out though. I chose to use a red from their hero image as the accent colour throughout the site. It would have been good if they carried this through to their branding but that’s not up to me.

Sid's Taxis

This website was for a taxi company who needed a new site for their SEO purposes. They really didn't care what it looked like and didn't have any branding to go off. Their previous site used an ugly blue so I kept a blue theme but updated it. Obviously the most important part of a taxi website is their phone number. The majority of users would only be looking for a number to call to book a taxi so I made their numbers very prominent in the header. The image was from their old site, they hadn't yet sent a higher resolution version. I also added four blocks underneath the header to clearly promote their main services.

The Zap Experience

The Zap Experience is an IPL hair removal clinic. They had already had some brochures designed and wanted to keep the website design in the same style; dark grey and pink. At first I was a little unsure of the image used in the header, thought it was a little too “Argh! Giant armpit!”, but apparently it was perfect for showcasing the results of the treatments offered by the clinic.

Ozonefit

I created a website for Ozonefit many years ago but after looking through my folio it was very dated. I didn’t want to show it in that state so thought I could create a modernised version using the same brief I had back then. The client wanted icons on the sections below the fold and to use the colour scheme from the logo. I also used Chat-GPT for the first time to create the text as I didn’t want to bother writing it myself, it was very helpful.

Intellect Property Investments

This was technically the 3rd (or 2nd and a half) design for this client. I did the first version based on a logo which they then completely changed so the whole site had to be redesigned. Once they had chosen a new logo I used that to create the basis of a brand for their website; using the colours, typeface and design elements throughout the site. Then they wanted three different versions of the new design which were then put together to create a Frankenstein’s monster like collage of bits from each design.

They are a property investment company whose client base was split between investors and landlords. They wanted different content for both types of users so I created two clear call to action boxes underneath the image slider to help direct new visitors to the relevant parts of the site.

Mal Malick Photography

This site was extremely challenging. The initial design was approved fairly quickly and it was passed to another developer to code. The more complicated functionality was coded by him but then the client said he wanted the site to be fully responsive and cross-browser compatible.

I had to take the Wordpress site and recode most of it to make it fully responsive by using percentages & media queries. I also needed to fully test every part of the site on all browsers and IE.

Unfortunately, the complicated slider he wanted on the home page could not be converted into a responsive slider so I came up with the idea of using three separate responsive sliders, with no margin between them, that transitioned at different times to look like a more complicated single slider. It wasn’t exactly what the client originally wanted but we had to compromise.

MUFC email

This email newsletter was for a job interview. The brief was to design the newsletter for the Manchester United store, advertising various items and offers available. They supplied most of the images and gave a lot of freedom in the execution. Red, black, and white are dominant colours of the design for obvious reasons.

K Pumps

This company wanted us to completely re-brand them. This meant I had to redesign their logo and all business stationery. Typically they didn’t know what they wanted and different directors had opposing ideas. They weren’t even sure what name the company was. Officially it was “K Pumps Ltd”, but they were also called “K Coolers” and apparently everyone just referred to them as “K’s”.

I created three different logos and a few variations of letterheads, compliment slips, and business cards for each logo.