skillset

In 20 years as a designer, working in both in an agency and in-house environments, I have amassed quite a large set of practical design skills. From print to web to broadcast and even writing the odd bit of music, I can use pretty much every bit of Adobe software there is. I have an excellent understanding of typography, visual hierarchy and gestalt theory in composition. These combined with an understanding of user experience and the relationship between a brand and it’s clientele allows me to see the big picture when it comes to delivering communications through all media channels. On top of all of this I’m not averse to doing a bit of coding and not at all afraid to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty.

process

Typically my process for projects kicks off with a meeting with the stakeholder to define base parameters and objectives of the project. Where possible I will have the relevant designers & copy writers accompany me to the meeting, as this helps them build a rapport with the stake holders and gives them a sense of ownership. The meeting I will define the following for the brief 1: Who is it for: Identify Target audience, 2: What is on offer: What does the audience have to gain from the campaign, 3: Why are we offering this, what is our objective as a business.

I will then collate the preliminary research a brief as well as a list of all the assets, the contexts the creative will be expected to perform setting milestones for presentation of rough concepts, semi-complete work, complete work before final rollout
I will task the design & copy teams to research what the audience is currently identifying with, are there any trends or memes on social that resonate with the audience & that we could potentially use a vehicle for our campaign, identifying language, imagery, typography & colour palette they would be drawn to. I will also ask them to collect examples of competitors
Using the research in the previous steps in a brain storming session to generate 3 narrative concepts, we would flesh out rough copy, scamps, mood boards & storyboards.
These are then presented to the stakeholder for them to select the one they think has the most potential.
The selected creative is then worked up to a semi-finished state using assets from 2 or 3 different channels to illustrate campaign consistency
This is then presented to access if we need to do any further fine tuning. I’ve never really had more than two rounds of changes, and usually this is down to things like offers and translations changing etc.
Once the stake holder is happy the master artwork is finessed and then all the assets for the various channels are created

How much time I spend on a campaign is down to the expected ROI which I define by lifespan, the campaign the audience size and the audience value.