My career’s core focus has been around making things, and making things better. This is probably why I became a designer and why I try to be useful to others, or build things that are.

I enjoy getting involved in helping business builders in all sorts of ways – both creative and technical. This can mean anything from education and training, project planning and research, ideas and concepts, design detailing, to technical integrations and automated processes.

Find me on Twitter / say hello

Career history

I started out in the mid-90s designing and developing brands and marketing communications at well known design agencies in London, including The Team, Lambie-Nairn, Brand Union and Turnbull Ripley. You can read more about this part of my career on my LinkedIn profile.

In 2014 I went freelance, spending 5 years contracted to various design agencies across London. This gave me exposure to a huge variety of ideas, work and people, accelerating my design knowledge and teamwork skills.

Between 2009 and 2014 I was mostly contracted in-house for Carphone Warehouse. This involved design leadership (product, UI & UX) on their My Hub web and mobile apps, including a number of trips to California to oversee implementation. Whilst at Carphone I also lead the redesign of the Geek Squad UK website, and provided UX and design planning for a mobile insurance product.

Since 2014 I’ve worked for my own clients at Bowley Design, in partnership with my wife. We help content creators and publishing organisations maximise visual impact and digital efficiency. That can mean anything from brand design, custom graphics and report design to managing digital marketing tools.

Makerpad research

As of January 2021 I’m now an official Makerpad Creator In Residence. This means I’m one of their tutorial researchers and creators. Their tutorials are all based on teaching people to build and operate businesses without using code.

Design content

I’ve been working to help fellow online makers with design in the last year. I’ve created the following products as a starting point:

• tinydesignlessons.com
• makerdesign.tools
• extrasfor.carrd.co

On Deck fellowship

From January to March 2021 I will be participating in the first On Deck No-Code Fellowship. This is a community-led 10 week intensive learning programme aimed at developing skills and launching products with no-code digital tools.

How can we enable makers with design skills at the same speed and ease that no-code tools enable them to build?

Update: I’ve now created 2 products as a result of this research:

• tinydesignlessons.com
• makerdesign.tools

Follow me on Gumroad to hear about new products: