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Creative Design Digital Photography

Studying Photography

I’m pleased to say that I’ve now started my part-time photography MA course this week that commenced with a thought provoking seminar on photography in modern culture.

I’m looking at photos that haven’t seen the light of day for years, some of which I’ll add on here in my Photography page. The below is one such image which I took whilst travelling in Canada.

Ant Tyler UI/UX Design

Overall it’s great to be back and having time to focus on a slight shift in career path, a path I trod many years ago. I’m available for part-time work in product design, ui/ux design and photography so get in touch if you would like to know more.

Categories
Creative Design Digital Photography Product design UX Design

A Creative Future

I’m pleased to reflect on my recent career and the diverse nature of creativity and projects that I’m currently working on. My Lead UI/UX Designer role is winding up as I prepare for part-time study in photography. I want to continue working in the UX field as I really enjoy the creative aspect of my role and working with design and product teams.

I’m excited about doing more photography and starting new projects with old-school film and digital cameras. This work will be focusing on landscape and portrait initially but I will be working in other photographic disciplines going forward.

I’m also working on my solo singer/guitarist set with a solo gig lined up in Manchester in early September. This is a welcome addition to my band which have been going for a few years now.

I’m also writing more and working on my own songs for both the band and my solo work. I started writing every day in 2020 during lock down which I’ve kept up. I’ve started a book project which I hope to self publish when I feel ready.

So lots going on and the weather is great outside, whats not to like! I feel that these creative projects feed into each other and I’m really enjoying this experience. I’m building a creative future and I feel very positive about that prospect.

If you are feeling creative I would encourage you to just do it as there is no time like the present!

Categories
Photography Portraiture

A Portrait Project

I’m going to be making the most of my summer travels this year by building up my portraits portfolio. Capturing images of people in their own environment can make for some striking images.

I’ve found that we often only get one chance to photograph an individual in their environment as we encounter them. So it’s important to take that chance and aim to get a great photograph. This is also an exercise in speed and confidence with our equipment and our ability to control the shoot situation.

I’ll be adding to my photography page with a new album once I have some good portrait images to share.

Categories
Art Photography

Back to Photography

A change in direction has seen me accepting an offer from the University of Brighton which starts in September this year. It’s an exciting shift in my career and I’m looking forward to working with images again.

I’m going to be available for freelance UI/UX design, part-time website management work and photography assignments from the end of August. If you have any enquires about my work just get in touch to see how I can help you with your lastest photography or UX/UI or digital media project.

Categories
Creative Design Ops Design Team

A Remote Design Team

Working remotely as a designer can be challenging, even more so if you’re managing a remote design team as a lead or senior designer. Fortunately we have a lot of collaboration tools available to us to help this method of working. Industry standard tools such as Miro where you and your team can work on user flows and ideation whilst working remotely.

If you’re working as a design lead then keeping in touch with your design team is a great way to keep on top of the team’s work schedule. Regular one to one meetings where you can check in and give direction are great. Design team meetings are also good, even better if you can hold face to face meetings if the team member’s locations allow this.

I find that having a dedicated office or working space really helps, somewhere to assign as a work space. So when the working day is completed you can close the door and “commute” to your lounge.

Maintaining focus in the working day is something that needs to be developed with a routine and a work pattern. This can be modified depending on the project work in hand but a routine really helps with day to day remote working.

Keeping a healthy work/life balance especially in the winter months when the days are short is key, this is where a home office comes into it’s own. Also working for a supportive company that allows remote location working is a plus as then you can work from different locations in the summer months which can be inspiring.

I hope that this is helpful and that this can help you as a designer working in a wider team or leading a design team.

Categories
Design Design Ops Design Team Product design UI Usability UX UX Design

Internal Design Agency

I’m working on improving our product design across our live NHS solutions for our company. This process is to formalise our design resource with an organised approach to production with our wider product team. To implement this I’m starting to run my design team as an internal design agency with a group of ‘clients’ which are our business stakeholders and senior product owners.

Introducing a unified approach to our product design has multiple advantages and this will help us to innovate and explore the best ways to help our end users engage with and use our products. On an internal level we can manage and guide our stakeholders and product owners using a design to production process that is clear and accountable.

We can approach projects in the same way with clear phases of requirements gathering and ideation. Then moving to wireframe and prototype design and iteration. Once signed off we can support the development and test teams with efficient design hand overs to build out the agreed features that match the final designs.

As we progress I can refine our design to production process to streamline the way my design team works within our wider product team. I aim to fully integrate with the wider business and become an even more valuable internal digital design resource.

Categories
Design Design Ops UX UX Design

UX Benchmarking

I’ve been working on implementing a UX Benchmarking strategy for our products. We’re gathering more data now and it’s going to be a busy year for us with new products coming to market.

UX Benchmarking is a great way to show our progress as our products develop and we get better at what we do. Being able to demonstrate how our users are responding to our systems in the real work will be great for our stakeholders.

Also UX Benchmarking is a valuable process and putting together our process has been an enjoyable process.

Categories
Creative

Happy New Year!

Wishing you all the best for the coming year! I hope that you will find creativity and positivity wherever you might be or go!

Categories
Design Design Ops Design Team

Design Leadership

I’ve been reading around the subject of design leadership to apply to my current role. As I lead a design team I want to produce and see created the highest quality design work. For this to happen I aim to inspire my team members as much as possible.

Clear direction, team motivation and communication are key and this can be challenging as all of my team work remotely. This is the workplace post Covid so I use collaborative software and team calls to try and bridge this gap.

I trust my team to be as creative as possible as this is where innovation starts and seeing great design going into our product teams and the wider business is a good feeling!

Categories
Design Design Ops UX

Design Teams

I’ve been working on expanding my design team to further support our product owners and development teams. Increased design capacity can help to support a wide range of visualisation and creative outputs that will benefit the whole company.

Getting the right fit is really improtant and ensuring that a new designer feels comfortable and welcome in the design team is key. Stakeholder engagement and being able to support projects in the discovery and elaboration phases is also on my radar. Also being able to provide prototypes for the sales team as they engage new clients becomes possible with more design team members.

I look forward to the new year with increased design capacity and more hands on my design deck. So we’re able to tackle the creative challenges that the new year will being!