About

Summary

During my 20+ years working in graphic design for the publishing sector I have gained extensive experience in many areas of the industry. As an art director and studio manager I am familiar with the challenges and rewards of managing an in-house team. I'm also comfortable juggling tight schedules and even tighter budgets - while consistently delivering high quality, engaging design. In addition to in-house studio management I also have many years project management experience dealing with external suppliers such as freelance designers, media researchers, illustrators, photographers, illustration agencies, repro houses, and printers. I am very familiar with the usual print design software - Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, and Acrobat. 

Employment History

Design Manager |  Capstone Global Library |  January 2007 – January 2014 |  Oxford , United Kingdom

With responsibility for all design and in-house prepress for Heinemann Library, Raintree, and Curious Fox titles for the UK and US. I managed a design team split between Oxford and Chicago as well as budgets and processes relating to design and in-house prepress.

My responsibilities included:

• managing and developing the design team in UK and US. Ensuring staff receive the necessary training and assistance to carry out their roles, providing regular individual feedback on performance and areas for development, and dealing with any performance issues.

• chairing regular team meetings to develop a strong team and share information across locations.

• monitoring workloads and allocating projects as needed to ensure all team members were handling appropriate workloads

• setting team and individual objectives and regularly reviewing performance.

• setting annual department budgets.

• developing relationships with key design and illustration suppliers.

• monitoring schedules to ensure that projects were on track.

• leading customer focused and progressive design standards.

• ensuring designs were customer focused and appropriate for the US, UK and international education markets.

• developing plans to ensure regular testing of designs and covers to ensure they meet customers’ needs.

• managed the pre-press staff and improving the in-house repro process.

• contributing to publishing and operations meetings. Dealing with questions on design costs.

• working with in-house marketing team to provide creative and technical input on marketing collateral and branding, including websites and catalogues.

• worked with other managers, including editorial, production and photo research.

Senior Designer |  Harcourt Education  |  January 2000 – January 2007 |  Oxford , United Kingdom

Harcourt Education (later to become Pearson Education), the UK’s largest publisher of learning resources for primary and secondary schools and further education colleges. My responsibilities included cover, page and screen designs for nearly all subject areas in secondary and vocational education. I was the lead designer in Harcourt’s strategic design direction for the Key Stage 3 curriculum change. My core responsibilities included:

• working closely with publishers to deliver the most innovative, customer-focused product possible

• building and maintaining a multi-discipline international supplier base

• creating and maintaining schedules

• negotiating budgets and managing fixed costs to ensure value for money and avoid overspend

• product R&D - including conducting customer interviews

Some of my other activities included:

• designing and maintaining the Harcourt imprint brand identities

• mentoring junior design staff

• training new editors in the company’s production processes.

Graphic Designer |  Artistix |  January 1998 – January 2000 |  Thame , United Kingdom

Artistix is a busy studio specialising in page design for educational publishers. My responsibilities included:

• page and cover design and page make-up

• creating simple illustrations and info graphics

• commissioning illustrators

• operating imagesetter and processor to produce film and bromide.

Design and Production Manager |  Pearson Professional |  January 1994 – January 1997 |  Hong Kong , China

Pearson Education is the world’s largest higher education and technology publisher and the largest foreign publisher in Asia. My first task in this role was to create a design studio. I specified the hardware, the software, and recruited English and Cantonese speaking designers.

My responsibilities included:

• the art direction and print production of all Financial Times, Pitman, Churchill Livingstone and Pearson Professional brands in Hong Kong and China.

• maintaining the brand identities in Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia.

• serving as a member of the senior management team.

• coordinating the design and production of three bilingual magazines, five newsletters, and a 300-page journal – The Hong Kong Law Digest.

• overseeing the design department’s contribution to migration of the Hong Kong Law Digest’s content into a publishing database system.

• managing seven full time members of staff and numerous freelancers.

Graphic Designer |  Asian Law Journal |  January 1993 – January 1994 |  Hong Kong , China

With responsibility for the entire design and production operation for this small legal publisher, I quickly gained experience in the production of:

• magazines

• newsletters

• books

• loose leafs

• advertising

• packaging

• corporate identity

Graphic Designer |  Covers Builders Merchant |  January 1990 – January 1993 |  Chichester , United Kingdom

My responsibilities included:

• design and page layout

• media placement and group advertising campaigns

• corporate identity

Education History

On request

Skills

• Adobe InDesign  - Advanced

• Adobe Illustrator  - Advanced

• Adobe Photoshop  - Advanced

• Adobe Acrobat Pro  - Advanced

• Adobe Muse  - Intermediate

• Adobe Animate  - Basic

• Microsoft Word  - Intermediate

• Microsoft Excel  - Intermediate

• Microsoft Powerpoint  - Basic

Other

UK Driving licence Jan 1987 – Present

Full, clean driving licence.