Croda are the name behind the high performance ingredients and technologies in some of the biggest, most successful brands in the world: creating, making and selling speciality chemicals that are relied on by industries and consumers everywhere.

Croda’s work focuses on the very small but with positive global benefits, we built this annual report around a micro/macro theme allowing the company to talk about it’s strategies in a direct and engaging way, another enjoyable project with a great team.

©Croda/Black Sun

While working for Black Sun I was lucky enough to have Burberry, the global British fashion house, as one of my clients.

Working closely with Burberry’s in house design team was a fantastic experience, through this collaboration we created a report that truly reflected Burberry and clearly communicated its strategy for each year.

As the brand was refreshed each report developed in terms of design and typography. A great company and an enjoyable collaborative project.

©Burberry/Black Sun

Guides to… was a long-running series introducing novices to hobbies and activities. 

The unwritten rule was for the name of each supplement to be within the image and not as overlaid type – a simple idea that allowed the guides to stand out and gave them their own look and feel. 

Over the course of the series I worked with and commissioned many visual specialists - model makers, illustrators and photographers.

To keep within budget I worked two or three months ahead of schedule to photograph several covers at once. 

Guides to... remains one of my favourite creative projects.

©The Guardian

Babcock is a leading provider of critical, complex engineering services which support national defence, save lives and protect communities.

The annual reports I produced for Babcock over three years helped to communicate its strategic direction to stakeholder groups through simple message driven layouts, easy to follow infographics and impactful commissioned photography.

A great engineering giant and throughly nice to work with.

©Babcock/Black Sun

Olswang is an international law firm
that prides itself on its innovative approach and insight.

I decided that the annual review should be equally innovative.

Our departure from Olswang’s usual photographic route in favour of a clean, typographic-based design created a document as surprising and confident as the firm.  

©Bladonmore

Delivering weekly illustrations personally for Investors Chronicle was really fun and strictly speaking not really work - loved working on this project.

Always nice when a new client comes back, Claranet were keen to update their reports feel from the previous year but wanted to update it slightly.

By using a more paired down page system I was able to keep the feel but develop the overall proffessional feel.

©Bladonmore

As a detailed, unflinching guide to criminal investigations, Crime Uncovered had to be as hard hitting as its subject matter.

I collaborated with creative director Mark Leeds on the overall design, the cover was fun to do, me, a 5lb lump hammer and a piece of security glass. I was fortunate to get such a visually striking result, and even luckier to have an incredible photographer to record it.

No retouching or manipulation
was needed.

©Observer

IT services provider Claranet needed a platform for the results of a survey of its European IT customers. 

The challenge was to develop a way to display large quantities of data clearly, whilst ensuring an interesting read.

Claranet had intended for the resulting report to be digital only, but the download version’s positive reception encouraged the firm to invest in printing it.

©Bladonmore

Brewin Dolphin are one of the UK's leading wealth managers. Offering expert, personalised financial planning and investment management advice.

Another favourite client while working with Black Sun, Brewin Dolphin are relentlessly focused on their customers, their brand is beautifully executed with a subtle visual style that has to be done perfectly to work.

To explore their close relationship with clients we proposed building the 2019 annual report around a series of thematic case studies, the Q&A style allowed key members of the leadership team to have ownership of strategic initiatives and helped drive the overall narrative.

Always a great firm to work with.

©Brewin Dolphin/Black Sun

Penguin approached me to design the UK release of US filmmaker Michael Moore’s autobiography “Here Comes Trouble.”

We used his iconic loud hailer as the central image and made the type as big and bright as possible to mimic the volume of his impassioned confrontations. 

Penguin’s book covers were the reason I went into design, so this is one of my favourite projects.

©Penguin

AMC is a fund management business, managing third-party capital globally and part of IFC (The World Bank). 

Our brief for this annual report was to create a new look for AMC whilst adhering to the parent companies' brand guidelines and professional look and feel.

Typography, grid systems and graphics were designed with both long and short “scan” readings in mind, an important element when trying to get the attention of busy investors. We used vibrant images to reference the core colour palette whilst reinforcing the firm’s links in developing economies, this, together with subtle shifts in typographic style, enabled us to create the desired space needed from the parent brand. 

©Bladonmore

Momma Lauren and Chef Jerome deliver fresh life stage suitable food to expecting parents and those of new born babies and their families, the food was low in salt, totally organic and delicious.

A full branding project from identifying possible brand territories, through to naming, logo development, packaging, web design and collateral.

I developed IDs for three key brand territories, ‘high end’, ‘fresh’ and ‘fun’. Through client meetings and feedback the final identity was developed before being rolled out across the business.

©Bladonmore

Newstarter aimed to use public opinion to get questions answered by people in the public eye. 

The challenge was to make the app fun and easy to navigate, using bold colour and simple images alongside clear typography which gave this App a feel all of its own.

©Bladonmore

I was tasked to redesign the FT’s country focus magazine series with a look and feel that combined serious news with high-end lifestyle.

Using a combination of subtle typography, reportage photography and beautiful illustration, I was able to turn what had previously been a slightly dry magazine into a rich visual journey through each country.

By changing the sections and varying the treatment of features, I was able to bring pace and fun to the design.

As part of the design process I also experimented with a digital version using Mag+ software with a view for a bespoke digital platform to be created.

©The Financial Times

Money Management is the FT’s finance magazine aimed at serious investors, the title needed a redesign to counter declining sales, it had an old fashioned look not helped by the use of bad stock photography.

I decided to go for a simple typographic style to allow the well written content to stand out and coupled this with a bespoke illustrative orportrait based cover approach.

After the redesign ad sales in the title increased, turning a declining magazine into a success.

©The Financial Times

Great speeches of the 20th century was a 14 part series published in the Guardian with speeches from Winston Churchill to Nikita Khrushchev.

Making the design and production match the quality of the text was the main challenge in this project.

A heavy weight stock was found for the covers to evoke a mid century school book feel. A woodcut illustrative style was commissioned to complete the look and feel of this popular series.

©The Guardian