What led you into design?
For as long as I can remember I’ve always been into art and design. I was always drawing as a kid, playing with Lego and building things. At school I took art as a GCSE but it was primarily focused on realism which I really can’t do, so I ended up failing and it really put me off the subject as a whole. After finishing school I saw online an advert for a foundation degree in graphic communication at the University of the Creative Arts so thought, "why not?". It was here that I was exposed to so many more creative outputs like textiles, graphic design, fine art - and illustration which is ultimately what I ended up studying.
Once I graduated, I knew pretty quickly that I didn’t want to be an illustrator, so instead I started pursuing graphic design opportunities. I secured an internship for Crack magazine based in Bristol where I got to flex my creative skills on a few spreads in the magazine which was really exciting. After many failed applications, I got an interview for a Web Designer position at a digital agency based in London where I ended up getting the job. I basically had to teach myself everything whilst on the job, but was lucky enough to have a great team around me and a creative director that really took me under his wing.
In many ways there are a lot of similarities and cross over in illustration and product design. I enjoy the challenge of storytelling or solving a complex user problem in a creative way. There is always more than one way to look at things and I try to remember that whenever I’m deep in the weeds of a particular project.
What does a typical day look like?
Most days start around 7am with a walk with my dog, Winnie. If it's an office day, I’ll usually get the train to London Bridge with my girlfriend, grab a coffee and then walk to Shoreditch where the Wise office is. I always really enjoy this time in the morning. I get to my desk around 8:30am and spend the first few hours working through things that need the most focus time without interruption. I’ve always been a morning person so I find I work best at this kind of time.
I work across a couple of different teams at Wise, so my afternoon is usually taken up with meetings or check ins with other designers or engineers. Right now we’re in planning, which is when we go through all of the projects that we think will be most impactful for users, and what we want to prioritise working on in the upcoming quarter - and present that back to the company. So this takes up a lot of time.
What's your workstation setup?
Where do you go to get inspired?
Inspiration is a weird thing, I find the harder you try and look for it the further away it feels. Typically if I’m stuck on a problem or can’t quite make my designs work the way I want them to, I try to take a break. Usually this involves some exercise, going to the gym, a run or even a long walk. Getting out in nature and just clearing my head always works. I remember reading an interview with Daan Klaver, the Creative Director of Build In Amsterdam, where he said he would always have a nap in the middle of the day. I’m not quite at that level...yet.
However, I do find a lot of inspiration in video games. I love how the UI and mechanics are so thoroughly developed and thought through, like little easter eggs that you know someone has spent a lot of time on to just go that extra mile and make it feel really polished.
What product have you recently seen that made you think this is great design?
I'm always in awe of the work that comes out of the creative team at The New York Time Magazine. Putting something out every week with such creativity and consistency is pretty incredible.
And of course...video games. I remember watching Grounded: The Making of The Last of Us when it first came out and thinking I wanted to be a game designer. Theres something about the idea of story telling through a game medium that I find super interesting. Recently I've been playing the Nintendo Switch a lot, more specifically a game called Deaths Door. The gameplay, animations, UI and soundtrack are all so good and the fact that this was built by a studio of only two people is insane!
What pieces of work are you most proud of?
I’m really proud of all of the work I did whilst at Companion Studio. Our aim was to create better products for people and planet and I think during my time there we definitely did that. One highlight would be when we collaborated with the team at The DO Lectures to create an updated brand and web system for their catalogue of videos, blogs and eCommerce items. It was a pretty mammoth project which required detailed information architecture and a system of third party vendors to all come together seamlessly. The end product was over 1,000 unique pages which I think still looks great to this day.
Another was getting to continue our work with Limna, an AI art assistant in your pocket which aims to give its users more information around the primary art market so that they can make purchases with confidence. The team had already created a really fun design language so getting to iterate and develop that further was a really great and insightful way to contribute to the product.
More recently I worked on the Editorial Design System at Wise. It’s a system that allows us to create pages quickly and effectively for the logged out experience and was one of the first things I worked on when joining the team. It was a pretty large scale project that affected over a million pages and took a significant effort from a lot of members of the team. Watching it rollout has been great. You can read more about it here
What design challenges do you face at your company?
There are many! At the heart of what we do is, of course, money. Everyone has a different relationship with it and interacts with it in their own way. The team works tirelessly to inform people about our products, how they work and how they can benefit our customers, but there's a real ingrained mental modal when it comes to money which doesn't change overnight.
Another big one is Wise’s internationality. Our products are used by millions of people all over the world and each region uses them slightly differently. One design solution that works for the UK and Europe, doesn’t necessarily work for APAC so we need to be flexible in our approach and make sure we take all markets into consideration for each small change.
What music do you listen to while designing?
Any advice for ambitious designers?
Never underestimate the power of networking. Throughout my career I’ve always emailed other designers that I admire to ask for feedback or a specific question. Sometimes you don’t get any reply and that’s fine as people are busy and owe you nothing. But most of the time people are happy to give advice, offer feedback or just chat about similar things. I’ve met some amazing people this way, got some really great advice and it’s even got me a couple of jobs.
Anything you want to promote or plug?
Wise runs a summer intern programme each year and for summer 2025 I’ll be looking for someone to join my team and work with me. You can read more about how the programme works here and apply here
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