It started with a BMX

It all started with a BMX. My friend’s dad was a graphic designer, and one day he gave me a laminated drawing of a boy pulling a wheelie. What was this magic, I thought? I was hooked.

I’ve always loved to draw. I get that from my dad, who loved sketching engineering plans. I spent my teens copying CD covers, Oasis, Pulp and Blur mainly, which led to some very questionable haircuts to match.

To pursue my hobby I went to college to study Art and Design believing I wanted a career in fashion, as I was a slave to the label at the time, and loved the glam the industry brought. It made sense at the time: I loved drawing people, pattern and colour, and fashion felt like the obvious home for someone who drew all day. I threw myself into it.

But then, Graphic Design happened! The posters, the record sleeves and the CD covers I’d been copying for years were all graphic design. So I switched, and everything I’d ever loved doing finally had a name.

A degree in Graphic Design at Lincoln Uni followed, then I took the first job going, to get on the ladder once I’d qualified. Then on to Manchester, before returning home to Sheffield, where I worked with the most influential creative I know, still my first call for advice 20 years later.

I always like to challenge myself, and the opportunity came to move to the big smoke and build my career further. I jumped at the chance. I wanted to work for big brands, and print was everything to me… For now.

I kept building my career in print, but with the rise of the iPhone I could see the world was going digital, and I needed to get on that bandwagon. Reluctantly, as I loved print and everything tangible. Fortunately, a good friend from uni was now Head of Design at Sourcebits, a San Francisco app agency, and they happened to have a junior UI design role going. So I put on my big boy pants, took everything I knew and jumped into the digital world from the very beginning.

My hesitation was short-lived: as soon as I started designing for the small screen, I loved it! Goodbye Adobe, hello Sketch.

Sourcebits gave me great foundations, and the skills to venture into this world on my own. The following years were a bit of a blur as I built my digital career across sectors: from freelancing for agencies such as Interbrand, to e-commerce for Sainsbury’s, to permanent in-house roles at Aviva and Bink. My software was always Sketch, it’s what I knew. It’s where I felt comfortable. And then, boom! Figma happened, and I was in love!

UI and aesthetics were all I adored, until I started working with design systems. As systems became prevalent in digital design, my fascination grew: the logic and intricacies of these libraries, the building blocks and what they mean. I was hooked.

I was part of the team creating the Motif design system for Anthem healthcare while I was at Ascendum (formerly Sourcebits, yes I went back there), before getting the chance to create my own for Glasses Direct. That gave me the confidence to call myself a design systems designer. Systems for BAT and Depop followed: first a web vision, then the design system to build it. And the chance to mentor designers along the way.

Tokens, components, documentation, governance: it’s the part I love most. I still get excited about a good naming convention.

All of that was made the traditional way. Pixel by pixel, component by component. Until now. AI started as whispers between the devs, and I stood at the back with my arms folded. Then I tried it myself. Be still my beating heart!

Now Claude and ChatGPT are everyday tools. They help me build token structure and documentation: the naming, the auditing, the guidance, the careful, slow parts of systems work, now a conversation.

It’s changed how I make things, not just how fast. I can describe an idea, see it, break it and try again before lunch. With vibe coding the prototype is the real thing, motion, states and edge cases included, so I spend less time explaining and more time making.

This site is the proof. The drawings of me through the ages were generated from old photos, GPT Image and Seedance brought them to life, and every line of code was written in conversation with Claude. Even that cute TV at the beginning was made with Claude and Blender. Same designer, same eye for detail, a much bigger toolbox.