Pleased to meet you!

I'm a designer/researcher/educator and Associate Head of the School of Design at Northumbria University in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Before joining academia, I worked internationally as a designer and creative director for numerous prestigious design and media businesses including Philips, Time-Warner, Windmill Lane Pictures and WPP in Europe, the USA and South East Asia.

My career and subject interests lie at the intersection of business, design, education and technology. Therefore my teaching, researching, writing and consultancy have invariably been various blends of these interests. 

As a practitioner and educator my particular fields of expertise are visual communication and interaction design, working primarily in the digital sector. 

In recent consultancy, I have worked with design and tech start-ups to evaluate their working methods and create compelling business propositions. Often in the process, new technology brings with it new creative opportunities for designers and entrepreneurs to exploit, which excites me and leads to new research and writing. On the flipside in education, I am always looking at how new business practices and technical innovation can inform new design practice and create better learning experiences for young designers.