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Background

I've worked as an art director or designer for over 25 years and expanded my services as technology has developed. I trained at art college (NEWI, Cartrefle College, Wrexham 1981-1985) before the advent of computer graphics and started in the industry with manual typesetting, mark up and production skills.

On moving to the U.S. in 1989, I began working with the Apple Macintosh and, I suppose, never looked back. I believe my training in traditional design and hands-on creativity including marker comps, storyboards and copyfitting has been invaluable throughout my career.

Even today, with daily leaps forward in computer graphics and desktop publishing capabilities, my old-school background, training and design aesthetic delivers in the quality and longevity of my designs.

Focus

I left the advertising agency career path in 1992 to start a computer game company and by 1996 had produced over a dozen cd-rom titles published all over the world. I designed all 3-D characters, environment, storyboards and wrote interactive scripts and produced logo and marketing materials for most of the products. From that multimedia background, I got into web and interactive design around 1995 and have been designing and producing web sites and interactive products ever since.

My current work is a fifty-fifty mix of print and web design for clients locally and internationally, producing logo designs, marketing and collateral pieces, advertising, brochures and web delivered content. I also work in video and still photography, particularly in morph animation and timelapse photography, techniques pioneered during my computer game days and refined more recently for television and multimedia, multi-screen display work.

I specialize in the 'pitch book' — image- and brand-focused business plans and concept presentations that deliver a highly professional, fresh look and feel to b2b communications in print and online. You can see some examples of these here.

For the hotel and travel industry, I have recently developed cost-effective high-impact photography and imaging solutions ranging from comprehensive resort and hotel photography to fast turnaround high quality postcards and marketing collateral material. Please visit HotelShots.com for more information.

Many of my clients I have retained for over a decade, including World Wildlife Fund for Nature International, designing and producing a number of print and web projects.

Milestones (click here for a brief timeline)

In 2010 and 2011, I completed nine iPhone and iPad applications, as well as published my first book: Around The World In Eighteen Days (www.AroundTheWorldBook.com).

In 2010, I launched an international politics and elections voting site, VoteGlobal.com and a global travel destination guide called SpinFirst.com. I also completed my first iPhone application, SpinFirst, now available in the App Store, and published my first book for iPad: Around The World in 18 Days.

In 2002, after premiering a series of custom-created ‘morph’ animations at a local arts venue, my work was profiled in an Oregon Public Broadcasting documentary which you can see by clicking here. This morph animation work has been featured in television commercials, multi-screen installations, web sites, art gallery shows and is showcased as a projected backdrop for rock group ‘The Dandy Warhols’ international live concerts 2002-present.

Throughout 1998, worked on a series of high-profile projects for a Hollywood-based themed entertainment company. These included the STAR TREK World Tour and TITANIC: The Official Movie Tour. Working closely with Paramount Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox, designed all graphic materials from tour logos through printed merchandise, show signage, advertising and promotional materials, posters, banners and official web pages as well as some of the events' multimedia content and two 40-page souvenir programmes.

After only a 10-month development period for hundreds of merchandise and promotional items, the STAR TREK World Tour opened to sell-out crowds on December 4th, 1998 in Dusseldorf, Germany. TITANIC Official Movie Tour opened the same month in London, England to equally enthusiastic crowds.

In 1997, I designed and produced an interactive cd-rom for Presentations Magazine. The cd-rom featured 3-D interactive learning environments, as a platform for delivering 'Decker Communications Guide to Effective Presentations'. It was distributed to over 100,000 Presentations Magazine subscribers.