When the team at We Are Fred first suggested I write a blog, my first thought was: how do you wrap up over three decades in the creative industry into a few paragraphs, and where do you even start? Looking back, I’ve seen some massive changes. Some of the tools I started with have completely vanished and some are now museum pieces. Originally from New Zealand, my career took me to the other side of the world—across the UK, Europe, and the Middle East—before landing me in Chelmsford, right in the heart of property marketing.

From Graduation to First Job

Like most teenagers, I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do. I just knew I wanted to be creative and travel. I ended up on a Graphic Design course that covered all bases: photography, painting, graphic design (and my first introduction to PageMaker). Working nights to pay my way and studying full-time, I was armed with my Letraset book, along with copies of Eye and Raygun magazine for inspiration.

A work experience gig at a local one-man studio was my introduction to the real hands-on creative industry. Back then, visuals were drawn with pencil and pen. Fonts were marked up by hand with instructions for the typesetter, who would output the text onto film. We’d then literally ‘cut and paste’ it onto boards with scalpels and Cow Gum to create camera-ready artwork. It’s a lost art now, but I was always amazed at how those designers just knew the exact sizes and spacing they needed purely by looking at a rough sketch.

When I graduated, my Mum and I spotted an ad in the national newspaper for a junior Mac operator at an Auckland agency. Everything fell into place. It was my first ever interview, and I got the job. The 90s agency scene in Auckland was good fun and a bit of an eye-opener. I learned QuarkXPress on the fly under a brilliant female studio manager, listened to Oasis and Blur for the first time, enjoyed regular liquid lunches, and fell completely in love with agency life.

But after three and a half years, the urge to travel overtook the novelty of lunches down by the waterfront. In 1998, I arrived in the UK with my CV saved on a single 3.5-inch floppy disk and my portfolio tucked into a little black folder.

London Life

After a two-month stint backpacking around Europe, and down to my last £20, I gave freelancing a go. I hopped between London agencies, even working the night shift at Ogilvy One to save for my next adventure. As a Kiwi in London, imposter syndrome was a frequent visitor but the studios always made me feel like part of the team. It gave me the opportunity to work on a huge variety of big-name brands that I would never have dreamed of back in New Zealand.

In the early 2000s, interviews were frequently conducted at the local pub. If you wanted to send a final job to the printers, you burned it onto a giant SyQuest disk and hoped the courier on the motorbike would get it there on time. I became a bit of an expert at mockups, spending hours in the spray booth creating DM masterpieces and mounting presentations onto polyboard.

After spending six months working and travelling in the Middle East, London drew me back again. I studied web design part-time, just as everything was starting to move online.

From Staying in Your Lane to Wearing Many Hats

In the mid-2000s, studios naturally operated around highly specialised roles. There was always great collaboration—we worked closely with creative teams, copywriters, photographers, retouchers, digital designers, and developers—but the workflows themselves were quite distinct; print and digital were treated as two separate crafts.

This was exactly the environment I stepped into when I joined The Adplates Group (TAG) within the CHI agency. I started as a creative artworker, progressed to studio manager of the Direct Marketing studio, and later joined TAG’s very first design and interactive studio as a designer. That move was a massive milestone for me; it was where my digital experience really started, and where I first tasted true collaboration and crossover between print and digital.

Fast forward to today, and those lines have completely blurred. As Creative Artworkers, our skillsets are much wider and we wear many hats, quickly jumping from print specs to digital banners and email layouts all in the space of an afternoon.

Returning to the Tools

After an eight-year ‘break’ to tackle the ultimate full-time job of raising two kids – while keeping my hands on the tools with a few freelance gigs – I decided it was time to step back into agency life. I got in touch with the talented team at We Are Fred, who brought me on board as a freelancer.

Naturally, I was really nervous, but the Fred team instantly made me feel like part of the family. It was my first ever dive into property marketing, and I spent my first two weeks solid doing nothing but drawing up floorplans. Talk about a learning curve! But it turns out artworking is a bit like riding a bike – within no time, it all came flooding back.

As my confidence returned, I watched the team develop brilliant new brands and campaigns with a speed that absolutely blew me away. Although the industry remained largely the same, the pace had definitely increased, thanks to the speed of modern tools, the talent of the designers and quicker turnarounds. I quickly realised that although I may not have been the fastest in the room, I brought some valuable experience to the table: three decades of knowledge, technical troubleshooting, problem-solving, mind-reading, tea-making, and a calm, reliable head. Fast forward a few years, and Nick and Clive had enough faith in my safe pair of hands to ask me to lead our expanding artwork team!

What Never Changes (And What’s Next)

Over my career, I’ve been lucky enough to work with some amazing people on a huge range of work. From corporate ‘blue chip’ clients, to charity and music events to branding entire rugby stadiums (and yes, getting to meet one of my rugby icons was a massive perk!). I’ve ticked the boxes when it comes to client meetings and presentations over the years, but honestly? It was never really my scene. I've always preferred a 'behind-the-scenes' role right in the heart of the studio.

After 31 years, the basics of a great studio haven’t changed a bit. It’s always been about collaborating to bring a creative vision to life and get a project across the line. Creative artworkers are still the ones obsessing over grids, technical specs, bleeds, and brand consistency across 50 different assets so everything looks just right in the real world.

The tech is going to keep moving fast over the next few years with AI landing in the studio, but it can be a really positive tool. It speeds up some aspects of our

job, meaning we can tweak copy, mess with imagery, and churn out variations a lot faster. But tools are just tools. While AI can generate a layout in seconds, it lacks the human touch, the eye for detail, and the decades of experience needed to make a job actually look right.

For me, the most memorable thing about this industry has never been the tech – it’s about the people you meet along the way. Technology will keep evolving, and I still look forward to learning. Besides, no matter how advanced AI gets, a modern studio will always need a human to bring the bants, make tea or make fun of my accent, even if I am officially a Brit now!

Now, my next task is figuring out where to book my next holiday.

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