Design

An overview of relevant and transferable experience

Art Direction

As an ethical retailer Waitrose decided to discontinue single use cups, to reduce waste and landfill. I was tasked to find a way to celebrate sustainability and the launch of reusable coffee cups. How to show the range in a meaningful way?

A 3/4 overhead shot would show the patterns and get impact from the solid colour tops. To tie in with a direct cover line I developed the concept of an army of cups to save the planet. A busy polka dot formation was rejected at mock up stage in favour of the calmer rows. To ensure the angle, crop and lighting was suitable shots were quickly placed into a live document while on set.

As I rotated each cup to align the spouts and line up the heat sleeves the shot came together.

Grids, style sheets & colour palettes

Create structure across the title and develop a flexible set of rules to help designers shape content.

At a macro level I developed the structure and typographic hierarchy to sustain interest throughout the paper. I conducted research to establish a family of fonts to harmonise and identify sections. Style sheet and character styles were used to balance the hierarchy and pace. Grids based on x-heights and leading were used to manage spacing and alignment of page elements. Section banners helped readers to scan and navigate pages - referencing a seasonal colour palette used across the business. As editions went to press a working vocabulary was established within the design team to standardise and treatments of articles and components.

The design balances the need for impact and accessibility while maintaining look and feel so the reader can navigate a variety of information.

Macro vision

Develop treatments of Waitrose Christmas content to repurpose assets and integrate with promotions across the business.

In each use case step one was to acquire the assets. Due to the responsive nature of retail these were often supplied as work-in-progress. It was essential to remain in close contact with stakeholders, and to keep them informed of my production timescales. With the increased workload of Christmas I had to re-brief freelancers and help them to deliver on brand.

The marketing and editorial functions were all delighted with this achievement during such a frantic period.

A weekly iOS App

The marketing team behind Waitrose Weekend were interested in having a digital offering to compliment the weekly paper.

As Deputy I worked with the Chief Sub Editor and off site developer to deliver a weekly iOS edition. A set of templates and a CMS streamlined the process. Design components were often customised and it was often necessary to create unique designs to work in the dual-orientation. In order to achieve a synchronised release two days after going to press I had to work flexibly to repurpose content as it was signed off. To meet the deadline on more labour-intensive content, such as the above 100 Best Restaurants in the UK, production of the paper was pulled forward.

While the process worked well, and there were genuine opportunites for e-commerce, there was no data to make the case for improvements and the project lost momentum. There is now incidentally an independent Good Food Guide app.

Software skills

I'm an experienced software user and have made use of many applications throught my career. I used Sketch to develop the mid-fidelity wireframes for Ethical Bean Company. I am familiarising myself with XD, using it recently for a rapid prototype as part of Design Challenge event.

As a fundamentally collaborative person I'm keen to make use of shared libraries in XD and Figma.

From my time time in publishing I am profiecient and productive with Adobe CC, having used InDesign and Photoshop on a daily basis. In Illustrator I am confident navigating and amending supplied artwork layers as well as authoring (especially as it now shares features with XD!)

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