Hey I’m Al and I’m a Design Director.
I do my best to adhere to the words of my late grandmother 🇯🇲; "Aim for perfection, settle for excellence". I achieve this by equally focusing on; people, the business and Design standards.
Welcome to my portfolio 👋🏼
My Values
Informed
The user must be our focus if we are to achieve business goals and I’m a strong believer in having a solid foundation of Research before projects come into design.
Research is fundamental to setting up for success.
Collaborative
We need teams of different skillsets do great work. Researchers, UXers, Designers and Dev should all be fully involved, informing project needs and processes throughout. Working together effectively is vital.
Empathetic
No one wants to work somewhere that doesn’t make them feel valued or empowered to do their job. Be kind, be empathic, listen, open doors, have a positive attitude and smile. Being nice makes all the difference.
The last 10 years…
I’ve been lucky enough to have worked with some great teams on some big brands. In the latter part of my career I’ve specialised more on Design Systems and management. Along the way I’ve also explored some entrepreneurial app ideas too. The key highlights are below.
How I work
DesignOps approach
Enable design efficiency.
Inductions
Defined design processes
Visibility over priorities
Design Systems
Design templates
Feedback loops
Inclusive community
Clear communication
Talk to everyone.
The Users
The business
The Researchers
The Product Owners/Managers
The Designers
The Developers
Everyone
A real Team focus
The team is everything.
Get to know individuals
Understand their needs
Apply care and empathy
Individual development strategies
Create a sharing, collaborative creative community
Provide healthy work-life balance
Quality of deliverables
Getting things done.
Organising projects and teams
Backlogs
Assigning tasks
Clear direction
Give responsibilities
Collective focus
Being available
Companies I’ve worked with
My next step
I’ve been working within the UX & Product Design industry for 10 a decade. I’ve worked as a Web Designer, Digital Designer, Visual Designer, UI Designer, UX Designer, Product Designer, Lead Designer and now a Head of Design and Director of Product Design.
My passion is to empower and inspire teams to drive business value through experimentation, research and customer centricity.