I like solving other peoples problems.
It distracts me from tackling my own.
Early Creative
Whether I was aware of it or not I have always been creative. I would often be caught breaking into my Dads briefcase to grab a pen and paper to scrawl some idea down. Had things been different I believe I would have become an artist had it not been for a terrible art teacher giving me unconstructive feedback on my work (I'm not bitter about it you are).
After a brief stint at a design agency in 2009 I quickly became frustrated with the churn of clients. The short project constraints, and throw it over the fence style work would frustrate me. I could never iterate on work, make small changes, or revisit past work when new experiences or technologies became available.
Thankfully this was at a time where the web was moving away from static sites, and into the world of SaaS (though the term was coined some time after).
I left that role, armed with enough knowledge to go freelance.
Freelance Creative
With a Macbook Pro in hand. I stumbled into freelance work. Through networking (read hanging out) I scored my first job designing and helping to build e-learning software for a well known French telecommunications company (god knows if the NDA is still in place).
And that was it, I was hooked on helping to design and build software for the web.
From here I moved to working with early startups based in the US/Europe. Working on several products spanning multiple industries, including;
Loan application software Lend Friend
Open Source AI platform Predict.io
Multi-level pixel marketing with Primeloop
International trade finance platforms Argo/Handex
Customer Experience solution Sonar
Creative Creative
As mentioned above (unless you skipped it, which is cool). My creativity spans across multiple disciplines. I am not only privy to visual design, but also experiences both online and off.
I currently produce ambient music under the synonym Oykoi, so if you fancy having something to listening to whilst creating that wonderful spreadsheet you can head over to Soundcloud.
I also dabble in designing and building my own projects. From a new way to chose films with MoviePop, to producing beautiful typographic quote images for social media with Retale, and finally a easier way to access Apples’ keyboard symbols with CmdSymbol.