I specialise in creating and developing defining digital experiences. I am a UK based digital developer currently working at Heckford Advertising. I collaborate with User Experience (UX) Specialists and other Digital Designers and Digital Developers to create positive user experiences in all my projects. I have well over 10 years commercial experience in helping bring great ideas to life.

I absolutely love good clean minimalist design and have a passion of all things digital and emerging technologies such as Augmented Reality. I develop native iOS applications as a hobby and attend other industry related events. I have an interest in computers, video games and technology.

I have over 15 years experience of working within a graphic design, creative artworking capacity and more recently over the past couple of years I have worked within the multi-channel and digital development arenas.

I am currently responsible for overseeing and developing Heckford’s website and all of Heckford’s client websites built on various Content Management Systems such as WordPress, Concrete5 and bespoke PHP/SQL solutions working with one junior developer and account managers. The clients range from theme park and tourist attraction operators; national housebuilders and developers; finance management; retailers; charities and regional councils. In addition, I also produce HTML emailers for various clients and have experience of using Campaign Monitor eCRM to manage sends and subscriber lists. I have also have oversight of the IT infrastructure at Heckford and work with Heckford’s IT supplier to troubleshoot network, hardware and software issues and upgrades.

In previous employment at MMA Digital, I was currently solely responsible for producing and maintaining WordPress CMS websites. The development of which included development of new responsive bespoke themes as well as the development of individual e-mails and landing pages. Also, I was responsible for keeping all of MMA’s clients websites up to date with the latest releases of WordPress and any of the website’s plugins. During my time at MMA, I have developed my own Grunt workflow to automate the compiling of CSS and JS resources and had started to look at adding SASS to my skillset.

In other past employments, I supported digital teams with development requirements to support the digital requirements of the agencies and it’s clients. This included designing and writing up appropriate developments, either from scratch or by adapting existing website software and packages/solutions to meet the agencies requirements, to test and to identify technical problems whilst adhering to current digital best practices and to deploy new workflows such as version control. I was building, scheduling and checking for email marketing communications for the agencies clients as well as assisting them in implementing new email templates, data updates and advising them on technical queries. I have also collaborated with the fellow UX and UI designers to generate user journeys, storyboards, personas, application architecture and I have written user requirement and technical documentation to assist the account management team and clients formulate suitable project briefs to reasonable timeframes and budgets. I also held weekly production meetings with the teams including daily stand-up scrums to ensure the team is aware of the workload for the week, if there are any issues or blockages and everyone is aware of any associated deadlines and to keep the account management team updated on the development of projects.

I have also had a hand in helping in the production of a WordPress custom themed and responsive website, a number of large touch screen presentations and a HTML5 Christmas game. Also, I helped the teams deliver the digital content and digital screen hardware including an interactive catwalk to a new Superdrug Beauty Studio retail store in Cardiff in July 2014. This project was well received by the client and their customer base. This project involved utilising a Kan-Ban workflow and all members of the team were responsible for keeping the board with their respective tasks on updated on a daily basis. This also involved keeping online collaboration tools such as Podio and the agencies own bespoke job management system updated.

I have also attended an eMarketeers course on Web Project Management in London which covered Agile and Waterfall working methodologies (end of Feb 2014) and a 1-day intensive course on Public Speaking, the latter course I funded myself. I have spoken at TechHub in Manchester on the merits of responsive web design for e-commerce in November 2013 at which over 90 developers attended and posted a few industry blog posts on this website. Through my public speaking and blog posts I have a following on Twitter and regularly keep my feed updated with useful and upcoming digital trends, new tech and tutorial links.

I have developed mobile applications for the iPhone and iPad using Xcode although none have made it through to the App Store. I have also completed a course in Objective-C programming in 2014 and have become a certified Apple developer for 12 months after the course. I have built a few mobile applications both in the company’s time and my own time.

In addition, my other past responsibilities included the development of automating artwork specifically for Point-of-Sale (POS) using Filemaker databases, xTags and Applescripts. Clients for which I used these tools were for The Co-operative Pharmacy, Midlands Co-operative, Bathstore and Superdrug. These POS workflows require working closely with the Data Management teams both on the client side and internally.

Further in the past, I have produced print ready artwork which is required to conform to the corporate branding guidelines of The Co-operative Insurance and The Co-operative Bank. The main body of the artwork consists of application forms, booklets, magazines, binders, one-piece mailers, and posters from A4 to 96 sheet billboards, exhibition displays, pull-up stands, pavement stands and signage. Over the past few years, my main responsibility moved into the retail sector and was working on-site with the client at The Co-operative Pharmacy head office. I was producing point of sale artworks for all the monthly promotions for over 700 Pharmacy stores. All of the artworks had be completed to strict deadlines so it can be printed within an allocated time slot to be ready for distribution or mailing and delivery into all Pharmacy stores for their monthly promotions.