Directing is mostly editing
What changed in the teams I led
3 → 10
Built the team
Grew the Iris design team from three to ten in 18 months. I interviewed and hired seven of them myself.
6 of 8
Grew the people
Juniors I mentored at Iris and Codeart who were promoted to senior, through weekly 1:1s, portfolio reviews and workshops.
30%
Fixed the process
Shorter delivery times at Iris after I brought in new review stages and design systems.
£3M
Ran the work
Largest campaign budgets I have managed, with 20+ creatives across 8 global campaigns.
How I work
Hire for judgement
I look for designers who can make a good decision without me in the room. A team like that needs fewer rules, so the rules it does have can be strict.
At Iris I interviewed and hired seven of the ten people on my design team.
Write the standard down
A standard that lives in one person’s head is a bottleneck. Design systems and clear review stages let quality survive a busy week and a handover between time zones.
New review workflows and design systems cut delivery time by 30% at Iris. At Codeart, a reusable system carried across 10+ projects.
Mentor on a schedule
Feedback works best when it is expected. Weekly 1:1s, portfolio reviews and workshops turn critique into a habit instead of an event.
6 of the 8 juniors I mentored at Iris and Codeart were promoted to senior.
Build systems that travel
Work for many markets needs a system, not a pile of files. One idea, set up so each city or language can adapt it without breaking it.
One template system served 14 FIFA host cities. One line carried Ripple across five financial hubs in local languages.
Stay close to the craft
I still design, artwork and prepare files for print when a project needs it. It keeps my feedback specific and my estimates honest.
Packaging and board artwork for Samsung’s First Flips, prepared for cut and print.
Use AI where it earns its place
Claude, ChatGPT, Midjourney, Runway and ElevenLabs are part of how I explore, version, produce and code. I write the skills and workflows around them, so the work is repeatable. The idea and the taste stay with people.
Who I lead, and where the work goes
Who I lead
At Iris Worldwide I led a design team of ten: creative thinkers, illustrators, motion designers and graphic designers.
Agency work is shared work. Ripple’s phase 2 was delivered with the lead agency team in San Francisco; the FIFA toolkit with 50 Sport in London.
Where it ran
- Ripple
- New York, London, Dubai, Singapore and São Paulo, in local languages
- FIFA Fan Festival
- 14 host cities of the FIFA World Cup 2026
- Samsung
- UK and Europe
- PayPal
- UK
Building a team?
Open to Creative Lead, Design Director and Art Director roles in the UK, Europe and the US, on site or remote, and to a few art direction projects with agencies and brands.