A very experienced creative director, broadcast designer and animator and with a track record of leading by example to produce innovative award-winning design solutions. 


EMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE

Creative Director, Xrayvision Ltd May 2014 - present 

Notable recent projects include:

  • Produced two six-minute CG animated sequences for QinetiQ, to help explain their research and development process. The original was so well received that I was asked to create a second version for the Australian market. This required sourcing an Australian voice over artist, and replacing British ships with Australian ones.

  • Royal Engineers Awards Dinner 2023: reversioned the brand I created in 2018 for their annual awards dinner (replacing the QEII cap badge with KCIII, as well as bringing the look and render up to date). I produced a two-minute intro loop, award announcement stings and end credit sequence to be played into giant screens at gala event in Whitehall.

  • Titles and on-air branding for the BBC’s overnight coverage of the 2022 US mid-term elections.

  • BBC Panorama; fast turnaround 3D animations for a reactive programme on the Grenfell Tower fire, June 2017.

  • Citibank - two films, each five-minutes-long, for Citibank’s pitch to host Saudi Aramco’s IPO. One film completely CG animation, the second involved footage shot on location in Cairo (standing in for Riyadh) augmented with CG.

  • Working with RedBee, I designed and animated branding for TEN channel in Egypt.

  • Designed and animated corporate explainers for Control Risks, BNP Paribas, NHS, Volvo and others.

  • I run a series of training programmes for broadcast and online designers at BBC News, including training & on-going mentoring to designers around the globe.

  • I’m a visiting tutor at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield.


Senior Designer, Visual Journalism, BBC News Sept 2012 - April 2014 

  • Led the cross-platform 3D team, providing on-the-day and forward planning design solutions using 3D, VR and VizRT.

  • Paired CG Artists with web developers to produce interactive 3D online using WebGL

  • Key player in the production and use of tablet graphics on the BBC News Channel, Six o'Clock News and Newsnight.

  • Convinced CG Artists to drop Maya in favour of Cinema 4D - resulting in a standardised platform across the department. Developed accompanying training programme in collaboration with Maxon UK.

  • Responsible for staffing: developed evaluation criteria for new designers; planned staffing rotation between Television Centre and Broadcasting House during move to central London, together with familiarisation and piloting to ensure all designers had necessary skills for new studios while maintaining strong team back at Television Centre.

  • Led selection for retention process for CG Artists

  • Managed performance of staff, including formal disciplinary procedures.


Senior Designer, BBC News March 2008 - Sept 2012

  • Senior Designer responsible for all daily graphics output of BBC News

  • Balancing requests from editors of BBC World News, BBC News Channel, Six and Ten bulletins as well as liaising with producers, directors, picture editors and correspondents and bureaux around the world.

  • Led key stake-holders from across BBC and managed relationships with LOCOG, Futurebrand and IOC to launch initial BBC Olympic brand two years ahead of the Games.

  • Creative Lead on the launch of 'World targeted programmes' - five strands which sat away from the main BBC News brand to retain viewers and encourage advertisers on BBC World News.

  • Insigated, managed and budgeted for 80 designers to make the transition from Quantel  Paintbox to Apple Mac and Adobe software. 

  • Acted as adviser to UCLAN when they set up BSc course in News Graphics.


EDUCATION & TRAINING 

BA (Hons) Design - multi-disciplinary course, specialised in animation/audio visual

North Staffordshire Polytechnic 1985-1988


PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS 

PromaxBDA - judge since 2004


SOFTWARE

  • Maxon Cinema 4D Studio + DEM Earth + various GreyscaleGorilla plugins

  • Adobe After Effects CC2024 + Red Giant trapcode + various scripts and plugins

  • Adobe Illustrator CC2024 + Astute plugins

  • Adobe Photoshop CC2024

  • Adobe Premiere CC2024

  • Adobe Audition CC2024


REFERENCES 

Paula Thompson - former Design Director, BBC News Visual Journalism paula8thatcher@gmail.com

Fiona Skinner - Head of Graphics, ITV Daytime fiona.skinner@itv.com