I'm the interim head of design at Arbor Education, the UK's most popular software for schools. I joined as a Staff Designer to work on design systems though! I'm strategically driving the system and the team at the moment, with significant releases drafted for 2027. This includes a tech migration for the component library, a visual language refresh, a multi-brand token architecture, and an information architecture overhaul.

Previously, I was "the design systems guy" at Figma, where I helped teams across the world build better workflows through consultation sessions, starter files, plugins, and widgets for the Figma community.

Occasionally, I speak at design conferences around the world. I also helped Apple whenever they needed to publish files to the Figma community.

The portfolio

I don't have a portfolio, but I'm working on that! The work for Arbor is definitely something I can show.

The reality is that every piece of design work before Figma I've created has either been lost to the mercy of company failure, or been overwritten by our thirst for redesign.

Working style

I'm someone who attaches a lot of self worth to my work (a good and a bad thing). If I'm engaged, I will do more reps.

I've been very lucky to work with some exceptionally high achievers, it makes me happy.

I work best in short bursts of extreme efficiency. This might result in 1000 words being written in 30 minutes, or a few dozen screens being pulled together in a few hours.

Constraints, particularly time-based, are a forcing function for decisions to be made and good work to be produced.

Always move forward.

Figma

I worked at Figma from June 2020, here are a few notable achievements:

Figma's first non-sales hire in London
Sole designer on Simple Design System, a UI kit preloaded into every Figma account.
Figma Community version, Github repository.
Helped launched Variables — Working on the keynote assets and demoing live in front of a friendly audience of 4k+ people
Advised enterprise customers on design systems, including JP Morgan Chase, Airbus, Adobe, and more than 300 others
Hosted 8 hours (overnight) of Figma's 24 hour Config conference
Published the official best practice guides on structure
Represented Figma in Belgium, Croatia, Dubai, Germany, India, Ireland, Poland, Qatar, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland at design events

Before Figma

I've worked in a lot of different industries: e-commerce, charity, hospitality, and travel.

Notably, I've previously worked mostly as a solo designer, or in product teams smaller than 10 people. This comes with it a requirement to be more than a designer, which I think is a good thing.

Cross-departmental collaboration is the best way to reduce silos and improve company culture.

A few things I'm proud of:

As lead designer, I helped Upgrade Pack secure a community funding round of £500k+ in ~14 days via Seedrs.com
After Facebook restricted our API access, I drove the design of "Pulse", an emoji-based rating system and WiFi auth product for Local Measure, helping the company pivot within 3 months
Helped scale the IBTimes.co.uk newsletter from 70k to 365k signups within 9 months. Modal popups!
Helped Slurp.co.uk win "direct merchant of the year" at an industry awards ceremony

Plugins & widgets

Files

Writing

There are a lot more, but life is short.

Here's an Arc sharing folder if you'd like to read later.

Talks (non virtual)

Side projects

Website stuff

Font: DM Mono.

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  --color-secondary: oklch(0.35 0.05 50 / 0.7);
  --color-background: oklch(1 0 0);
  --color-highlighter: oklch(0.87 0.03 50);
  --color-border: oklch(0.80 0.02 50);
  --font-size: 13px;
  --line-height: 1.6;
  --font-family: 'DM Mono', 'Courier New', monospace;
}

Mode: Light • Dark

Theme: Classic • Brutalist • Randomise