Product design lead
Design lead for planning tools, design systems and editorial interfaces.
I join teams that have outgrown their first interface. My work is the unglamorous middle: turning scattered research into a shape people can use, and turning that shape into a system the team can keep building on.
Open to lead and principal roles, and to short system engagements.
Profile
Most of the products I have worked on are used every day by people with a job to finish — schedulers, field crews, editors. That shapes how I design: fewer clever moments, more predictable ones. I write specs the engineering team actually reads, keep a component library honest, and stay close enough to support tickets to know where the design is lying.
Component libraries, tokens and usage documentation that survive contact with three teams shipping at once.
Turning interviews, diary studies and support logs into decisions a product group can argue about productively.
Working alongside engineering from the first sketch, so the design that ships is the design that was tested.
Experience
2022 — Present
Fernbrook Systems — planning software for land and conservation teams
Lead design for the scheduling and mapping products, and set the practice for a group of four designers.
2019 — 2022
Halden & Co. — subscription tooling for independent publishers
Owned the editor and publishing flows end to end, from research through release notes.
2016 — 2019
Cottongrass Studio — client work for civic and cultural organisations
Designed wayfinding, booking and archive interfaces for museums, gardens and local services.
2014 — 2016
Rill Media — small product and marketing team
First design hire; covered interface, print and the beginnings of a shared style guide.
Selected work
Fernbrook Systems
A scheduling surface built for gloved hands and poor signal. The redesign moved the day's plan into a single scrollable column, made every action reversible offline, and gave supervisors a quiet way to see what changed overnight.
Halden & Co.
A writing environment with visible version history, structural outlines and a review mode that keeps comments beside the paragraph they belong to rather than in a separate queue.
Cottongrass Studio
A seasonal route guide for visitors on foot, designed to be readable in bright sun and useful when the map is the only thing loading. Signage and screen shared one typographic system.
Skills & study
2013
Ashgrove College of Art — typography, editorial systems and print production.
2018
Short course covering assistive technology testing and inclusive content structure.
Ongoing
Self-directed study in modern CSS layout, kept current so specs stay buildable.
Contact
A short note is plenty. What the team is building, what stage the design work is at, and when you would want someone to start.