Due to the fast paced nature of running a one-man studio, moving from one project straight into the next or having multiple projects overlapping, means I rarely get time to reflect on the work I've just completed.

A few weeks back a 'PLEASE DO NOT BEND' style envelope arrived at the studio. Thinking it was print/paper samples I'd ordered for a client project I opened it without much thought and was taken aback to see I’d received a recognition award from Right Aligned (they do great things for the design community and provide a platform for the little guys like me to be seen and heard.)

I’m not gonna lie, I welled up, then proceeded to jump around the studio like a kid. Accompanying the award was a small note from Chris Sanders (the founder of Right Aligned) thanking me for my contributions to the community and complimenting my work. It felt incredible and my confidence and motivation has been fired up since.

Chris’ kind gesture of recognition reminded me I need to carve out time to enjoy the small wins and the achievements within each successful project delivery, and to keep doing what I'm doing. I'm off to add 'award winning' to my title.

On a side note, the assemble-yourself style award was the cherry on the cake, as a fan of Lego and assembling Ikea furniture, this ticked all the boxes.

You can check out the invaluable work Right Aligned are doing for the design community HERE.

From 5th-9th June '23, Right Aligned Events hosted their inaugural Online Design Festival. A week long event with 30 events and 50 speakers. I was one of fifty speakers hosting a workshop in the 'Nice Work' series format sharing my design process and all that goes in to creating a new brand.

It was a real honour to have been asked to participate amongst so many talented creatives, and delighted to see I even got my name on the line-up poster (a dream I've had since my days of being a frontman of a pop punk band)

You can watch the full talk here.

Right Aligned are empowering creative communities by sharing the story of people working in the creative industries. Their programme consists of talks, workshops and events, giving everyone the opportunity to be heard including juniors, freelancers and founders because they believe in developing equal opportunities that are accessible to all, irrelevant of age, ability and background.

I was delighted to be asked to share my story as part of the 'Building a Studio' series that Right Aligned host. I sat down with founder Chris Sanders for an hour long talk where we chatted about my career so far, the pros and cons of keeping it small and being proud to be a generalist.

You can catch the full length conversation on their youtube channel HERE

Fedrigoni 365 has always been an expression of love. It has been its own love letter to the power of creativity, of fine paper and of exquisite print. For the 2023 edition of Fedrigoni 365, each contributor was asked to use the concept of 'LOVE' as their core inspiration along with an assigned date, mine being Jan 28th.

Inspired by the concept “love is in the air” I explored a balloon-like type in the form of an inflated beating heart.

The numbers form a soft tissue style aesthetic seen in a real human heart. When in love our heart skips a beat and makes us feel like we are walking on air.

Using Open-Source software Blender, I created 3D type and inflated the numbers in the form of a love heart, with each '28' softly nestling and cuddling one another, multiple parts forming one united shape.

Each book was assembled at random, with varying coloured front and back cover boards glued onto each book block. The internal pages showcasing the red and pink hues of the paper range.

Special thanks to Susan Mitchell for the invite to take part (and for her wonderfully skillful wrapping of the book) and to TM Studio and Identity Print for producing a source of inspiration for new designers, showcasing the endless possibilities of finishing and book binding.

Show some love and pick yourself up a copy from Counterprintbooks with profits going to the British Heart Foundation.

Another year and another feature in the prestigious Fedrigoni 365 calendar.

Each contributor was given a date to inspire their design. I was assigned the 16th of December.

My date conjured up memories of flicking through the pages of an Argos catalogue picking what items I hoped to get for Christmas. One of those eagerly anticipated presents was the first 16-bit games console, the Sega Mega Drive.

An icon of the games industry I created a technical style illustration of the console to represent my given number of 16, with Christmas representing December. With the silver metallic Pantone being my assigned colour for the print, the design is reflective of printed circuit boards typically found in consoles of that era.

The edition is divided into four volumes, each of which were produced by a different print partner. All of whom flexed their creative and technical muscles on the earthy tones of Materica.

Special thanks to Susan Mitchell for the invite to take part and to TM Studio and Diamond for producing a source of inspiration for new designers, showcasing the endless possibilities of finishing and book binding.

Available to buy from Counterprintbooks with profits going to Mind charity.

The fine folks (Graeme & Craig) of JamHot, kindly asked me to do a short talk at their most recent GAB event. Gab is a get together for creative folk – a series of informal talk events in Glasgow where you can get inspired, meet new folk and share ideas.

I'm a huge fan of the GAB talks and have attended pretty much all 28 of them, so it truly was an honour to be asked to be on the other side and give a talk this time round. I shared the stage with Susan Castillo (a set styling-photographer) Ross Baynham of INSTRMNT and Pamela Scobbie from creative agency John Doe.

It had been two years since the last event due to the pandemic restrictions and it felt great to be meeting up in person again with other creatives and spending an evening sharing stories, catching up and having a few beverages. Really enjoyed hearing the words of advice and journeys of the other speakers. Thanks again to JamHot for asking me to take part.

Interested in having me come speak at an event? be on a podcast? or just wanna hear my story? get in touch, I'd love to come share my ramblings.

Creative Boom is one of the UK's leading magazines dedicated to the creative industry. They deliver news, inspiration, insight and advice to seven million creative professionals every year.

I was delighted to be featured, not once, but twice for my work on Naturoco and Backsp!n projects. Thanks to the wonderful Katy Cowan for including me in the CB world.

See the features here & here on Creative Boom.

For the last 135 years, G.F. Smith have been making and curating the world’s finest and most distinctive papers. An independent British company, they work in partnership with brands, creatives, designers and specialists, providing the foundation for those that seek to create.

As part of their recent website redesign, they introduced new a 'Paper Possibilities' section which aims to celebrate and showcase creative projects across design and production.

I was honoured to be one of the creative contributors for my work on the corporate brochure for Morrison Scotch Whisky Distillers.

Full feature here