About me
I am a creative leader who guides design teams to maximum effect. Ego-free, inclusive and driven.
I lead by example, respect others and try not to be a d*ck.
Not one dimensional
As a creative leader, I take pride in not only helping to craft lasting design solutions but also in motivating and inspiring cross-functional teams.
When needed I can be a design mentor, coach, manager or counsellor. Each hat allows me to truly understand and get the best from others. I’m unashamedly personable and authentic and aim to help others achieve their goals before my own.
Teamwork makes the dream work after all.
Professional skillset
The expertise I call upon in order to achieve results and build trust.
Design practitioner skills
Product strategy and vision
Principles and theory of design
User experience research and design
Visual design and application
Accessibility champion
Branding and content design
Design system advocate and expert
Interaction design
Photography and illustration
Content management systems
Essential skills
Creative brief validation
Verbal and written presentations
Workshop facilitation
Stakeholder management
Coaching and developing others
Active listening and tangible feedback
Personal development and goal setting
Time management and planning
Skills recruitment and retention
New business generation
Outside of work
I’m a sucker for a list, so in true fashion here are the things I love.
Restful
New tech and software 💻
Beat generation writers 📚
NBA Basketball 🏀
60’s London movies 🇬🇧
Loud music 🤘
Energetic
My wife and two girls 👪
Crossfit and HIIT training 🏋️♂️
Road and trail running 🏃♂️
Road and MTB cycling 🚴♂️
Triathlons and adventure racing 🏊♂️
What others think
I’ve had the pleasure of working with so many brilliant individuals throughout my career. They think I’m ok too.
“Tom is a brilliant manager, natural leader and all-round great bloke. His management style is effortless, creating a relaxed yet hard-working atmosphere, making you feel part of the team right from the go.
His enthusiasm & knowledge of design best practice is both infinite and contagious, making you naturally want to strive to do great work. I would highly recommend Tom and can honestly say he’s one of the best people I have worked with within the design industry”
Dave Copeland
“Tom was an outstanding mentor during my time at Aviva. What made him such a strong influence on my development was the trust he instilled in me. He is calm, personable and encouraging which helped me transition into a design lead.”
Alan Grehan
“Tom has been a great manager to me over the last 3 and a half years at Aviva. His ability to guide other designers & provide encouragement to do the best that they possibly can is second to none.
His knowledge and skill of Design are broad, having had plenty of experience in Digital, Illustration, Typography, UI & UX, Design & Marketing, Branding and Print which he isn’t shy of sharing only to enrich the outlooks of other design fellows. This is one of the many reasons I have enjoyed working with Tom over the years and count myself lucky to have has a manager like him.
Tom has a calm and friendly nature, which makes him easy to approach whether you have a work issue or a personal one. Tom is extremely personable and friendly, he really cares about his team and makes the effort to get to know people. Tom is solution-oriented, which makes him highly reliable. He puts your problems before his own if he sees one of his team struggling he will no doubt be there to assist, I’ve had a lot of help from Tom over the years which I will always appreciate. I’d work with Tom again and again if I had to.”
Shivalee Vichhi
Design philosophy
My approach to answering customer problems is simple.
Design is unique and ever-changing, much like our customer's lives. It is my duty as a creative problem-solver to not assume I know the customer but to look deeper to create products and services people want to use.
I enjoy reducing business uncertainty by solving real problems.
User-centred design approach
Simply put, businesses large or small have one simple mantra to adopt to ensure growth, retention and loyalty - speak and listen to your customer.
Far too often, a business will aim to compete in a populated marketplace by simply adding one more product feature than their nearest competitor and feel that this is the way to deliver value for the customer.
Wrong.
Firstly, align to user needs
You wouldn’t go to the expense of building a Bugatti Veyron to perform the daily school run for instance, so learn what your customer truly needs. They won’t necessarily know it, and this is where time and money should be spent in discovery, definition, delivery and optimisation.
Understand your customer’s needs and wants. You will often find these are constantly changing as the world around us morphs.
Secondly, make it meaningful
Customer behaviour analysis shows that when designing lasting product solutions we must make them meaningful. We can only do this by talking to our users, understand their pain points and then address them with smart design solutions.
Focus on consistency, familiarity, error prevention, task efficiency and ease of navigation. And you will have a user value-driven product.
Remember, the first 10% of the design process, when key design decisions are made, can determine 90% of a product’s cost and performance. Take a user-centred design approach to get it right.
Fail fast, learn faster
Where possible, aim to fail quickly and learn. However, as a realist, I’ll be the first to admit that other business imperatives can alter this approach.
Here are two approaches I use when time is limited:
A mature design system
A robust design system can fast track the validation of design hypothesis through rapid prototyping and testing with users to avoid incurring too much time and cost. Therefore quickly pinpointing the areas of true customer value.
This can allow for the alignment of business stakeholders behind a customer solution much sooner.
Focus and re-use
If I could offer any tips, aim to have a single view of your customer. That might be through a combination of research, insight and data but aim to be clear on who you are targeting and why. Keep this view maintained.
Elsewhere, be smart with reusable tech stacks, API’s and code. Quality and innovation come through opening up valuable time to ideate and explore ideas, not through recreating what you already have.