…and the specific content? Establishing this as early as possible makes a huge difference to how any project flows.

Maybe you have great content as a starting point. Maybe you don’t. Maybe it’s somewhere in between. I’m not a copy writer – I don’t research businesses and create content from scratch – but  I do guide on the kind of content you’ll need, plus structure and edit copy so it suits the medium it’s in.  (That can be particularly helpful for writers who are used to working long form).

Storyboards, sitemaps and wireframes are a very useful way to figure out the audience experience before getting into actual ‘making’ – particularly for complex websites or animations.

They mean you get to see what’s in my head (and I get to make sure I understand what’s in yours) before committing to the time-consuming part that is design, animation and production. We can be sure we’re telling the story the right way before shifting gear into thinking about what something looks & feels like.

The right design and brand can be like finding the perfect outfit. You get to step out into the world with your head held high and your audience ‘get’ who you are. So I really try and get this right.

I create brands from scratch – often as part of a larger website project. But I play well with others too, so on lots of projects I collaborate with other designers, animating their illustrations or working with their branding. If there are very defined brand rules, I follow them closely. If there aren’t, I’ll develop what’s already there to bring the brand to life as fully as I can.

My background is very much ‘marketing’, and I’ve worked on heaps of digital campaigns – either solo or collaborating with marketing teams – covering everything from concepts to microsites, landing pages to html emails, social media graphics to additional quirkier collateral.

For branding projects I create printed supporting material – but if you need real print specialists, I can recommend a great team.

If you want to inject personality, emotion or humour into your message or simplify the complex, animation and motion graphics are perfect.

I focus on what your goal is, then work on structure and mood. Sometimes quick off-the-cuff doodles are ideal. Other stories need much more intricacy and detail.  To get there, I create concepts & illustrations from scratch; collaborate with graphic artists to bring their drawings to life; and make characters and props by hand for stop-frame animations that tell stories in quirky ways.

Websites can take many shapes. I’m not tied to any one way of creating them. Your site may be best on WordPress, or another CMS, or built by hand, or require some custom development. It may be large and complex. It may only need to be a neat one-pager.

I design sites and look after build too – typically creating designs as an initial starting point then dove-tailling between site construction and visual development. (I’m not a full-on developer, but I collaborate with some great ones on super-complex sites).