One designer. The whole product.

In-house, freelance, or a project alongside another job – the arrangement changed, the position didn’t. I’ve nearly always been the only designer on it, so everything the work needed came to the same person. That also made me the design point of contact for everyone else – developers, project managers and the people who signed things off.

What I care about is whether someone gets through the task (or a book) without fighting the interface – which usually means taking decisions away from people, not adding more options. When it’s done well (almost) nobody notices.

Some of this work was mine from the first sketch: a visitor-management system and its logo, a cross-border employment platform, a bank’s entire publishing programme. Some of it I inherited – someone else’s platform, someone else’s brand rules, a product already half built and shipping. Both are fine. The second is more common than portfolios admit.

I stayed seven years on one signage platform. Two editions of the same book, five years apart. Three years on a med-tech app. Around twenty books for one client.

Books, catalogues and brochures aren’t something I used to do. I still take (and like) that work – from a 90-page catalogue to the redesigned classics. The files that go to the printer are mine too, prepress and all.