About me
I'm a Senior / Lead Product Designer. For the last 7 years, I've been designing products from concept to launch.
I'm a true crafts person. I love detail, problem solving and creativity.
I get stuck into my assignments and fully immerse myself into each challenge.
I have an entrepreneurial spirit, which I realised in 2018-20 living in Krakow on my savings, creating my own app, Plantify. I feel connected to both company directors and developers because of my experience embodying these roles during this process. For this reason, I fit seamlessly into development squads and stay close to their work.
I am self-directed and take the initiative. I am always looking ahead, while my goal stays focused on the best product possible.
A bit of history
After graduating in Canada with a First Class degree in Music Composition & Theory, I taught English in Tokyo and Paris. I then decided to take an IT conversion course at the London School of Economics. My first job was as a project manager with just one person on the project. He was both a developer and a reluctant designer, and I was more than happy to take on the role of designer to make his life easier. During my IT conversion course, I was already experimenting with nice front-end graphics :)
From here, I went on to work at the BBC, producing and designing websites, and later for BBC Worldwide designing animated sites.
I eventually headed up the design team at Nature.com. At this time the field of UX was taking off, and I introduced UX techniques into the team. During my 5 years leading a team, my design skills had eroded, so UX was the perfect avenue to get back into a hands-on role.
I spent the next decade or so working as a UX designer, mostly through London agencies such as AKQA, Splendid, EMC Consulting (aquired by Dell), Sapient and AMV BBDO. My clients included Citi Private Bank, Barclaycard, Tesco, BMW Mini, Asklepios, John Lewis Partnership, Guinness, and The Financial Times. I also worked as a contractor directly for companies such as Zoopla, Kobalt and Premier Inn. As the field of UX was quite new, there was a lot to learn, and a lot to contribute as a UXer.
However, as a former integrated website designer and animator, I missed the UI element, and was frustrated the industry more or less required designers to choose UI or UX exclusively.
In 2018, while living and working in Berlin, I got the idea to take time out and create my own product. I moved to Poland and worked on my own app full time. This allowed me to re-skill myself in Illustration and UI (as well as no-code development on the Bubble platform).
Launching Plantify was a huge sense of accomplishment and gave me fresh new confidence to get back into the market as a fully integrated designer when I returned to London in 2020.
Fortunately, the industry was starting to shift towards this type of designer, now known as a Product Designer. I've been working in this capacity ever since.
I've never been more fulfilled and fully engaged in my work than I have these past 5 years as a Product Designer. This role lends itself to rapid production schedules and new product launches which are very stimulating for me.
Personal interests
Art and Art History
I'm basically a geek on many levels. Art history is a major passion. I was suddenly converted to Renaissance painting on a trip to Berlin, at the Gemäldegalerie. I started reading art history books and then studied art history undergraduate courses part-time at Birkbeck University, London. I obsessively visited art galleries and took up painting. I wanted to learn to paint using bright colours like my favourite Renaissance artists. I worked through a master course textbook for a year. I then started to paint my own scenes.
I also wrote a number of articles reflecting on the colour modes and styles of game art, which I published as an Art History Blog. I later added a few essays I wrote as part of my formal studies, the most popular being Colour Symbolism in Giotto's Arena Chapel. I haven't added to the blog for years, but I like to keep it live.
I remain fascinated by Art History, and make sure all my holidays revolve around art galleries and cathedrals.
I also create illustrations for family cards and the like.
Prints of my paintings can be bought on Saatchi Art.
Piano
After concentrating so much time on art, design and illustration, I left behind my first love for many years, which is piano.
In the past few years, I've spent a lot more time playing piano and have taken a few online courses on improvisation and jazz chord structures. I'm not a natural improviser, and I always love coming back to a Bach piece, but it's very rewarding.
One of the lessons was about the chord sequence of Pachebel's Canon, circa 1680. I worked on my own version for a month or so and played it over zoom live on Mother's day for my mom. She loved it!