Course Leader
As Course Leader for BSc User Experience Design and BA Graphic Communication, and Cluster Lead for the trio of Human Centred Design Masters courses at Norwich University of the Arts (MA UX Design, MA Service Design, and MA Interaction Design), I spend a lot of time organising things, and the rest of the time figuring things out, at the intersection of technology, people, and education. My students are amazing, and have won the top prizes at the Creative Conscience awards and the D&AD New Blood awards.
AI Champion
I may or may not be the university's ‘AI Champion’. I was offered the title by the former Deputy Vice Chancellor, who moved on before I accepted it. I've used it a few times, and no-one seems to mind. AI is simultaneously amazing (I used it to build this website, which I can update via voice notes to Claude Code on my phone) but it's also screwing up much that we hold sacred, and threatening the graduate job market, which makes it quite a difficult thing to champion. I encourage all students to have a 'critical engagement' with AI, and to know it well, even if they disagree with what it represents or how it's being deployed. It's changing things too fundamentally, and too quickly, to ignore.
I sit on the university’s AI Working Group, developing principles and guidance for students and staff, mitigating for the existential threat to the traditional academic essay, and figuring out what to ask students to do instead. We think it's all about evidencing process over outcome.
Industry projects
I’ve led Knowledge Exchange projects pairing students with clients for live project briefs including Interstate Creative Partners, Foolproof, What Caused This, Virgin Wines, and Coder. These are often the best bits of our courses, where students pick up real-world design experience.
External Examiner
I’m an external examiner for BA Future Media Production at the School of Digital Arts at my alma mater, Manchester Metropolitan University, and have advised on course development at University of the Arts London.
Research and consultancy
Recently I’ve acted as a consultant with filmmaker Antony Barkworth Knight on research for AI-driven immersive video projects Stable Visions and The Light. Stable Visions is a 360-degree video designed for the 10m-diameter cylindrical LED volume at the Immersive Visualisation and Simulation Lab at Norwich University of the Arts. The film explores the history of filmmaking and the journey to AI video, through humanity's relationship with horses.
Technical Adviser
Before teaching at Norwich, I was a Technical Adviser at Goldsmiths, University of London, supporting animation and interaction design projects with students on BA Media & Communication, MA Digital Media, and MA Photography. A highlight was kitting out the stop motion studios with classic 70's Nikon lenses acquired from the set of Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs.
Making stuff
Outside education, I’ve worked as a UX and media consultant, web designer, video director, animator, graphic designer, and sound designer. I created content for Channelflip Media shows David Mitchell’s Soapbox for The Guardian Online, Harry Hill’s Little Internet Show, and made a movie mashup film series, Multimash, for their Youtube channel The Multiverse. I've directed short films that screened at international festivals and featured in the British Animation Awards touring programme. I contributed post-production to Ceiren Bell’s The Demon’s Head, an animated short film which was nominated for a BAFTA Children’s Award. Although, Luke Pearson's amazing Hilda series pipped us to the win on that one - which is absolutely fair enough.
If it moves on a screen, and/or is interactive, analogue or digital, I'm up for designing it. Currently falling in love with Rive.
