About me

Coming from a graphic design background working on printed materials, I transitioned to online digital design after clients started inquiring if we also "did websites". With the rise of digital media, the focus shifted to building both websites and printed materials. As a result, I had to rapidly acquire coding skills and became proficient in HTML and CSS.

After working for design agencies in Dublin, where I worked on everything from logos and brochures to websites and email design, I decided to move to the UK in search of new opportunities.

While at my first job with TUI Travel, I began to recognize the importance of user-centered design processes and became more focused on incorporating these practices into the company's design workflow. At TUI, my daily tasks included creating emails and collaborating with developers to build landing pages for email campaigns.

After gaining experience in my previous role, I was headhunted for the position of Digital Designer at HomeAway UK, which was part of a much larger organization. This role required me to work with a wider range of stakeholders, including project managers, marketers, developers, and quality assurance personnel. Despite the new challenges, I was able to maintain my user-centered design approach in all of the tasks assigned to me.

As a member of HomeAway UK's in-house design team, I was responsible for creating email campaigns, as well as lead-generating landing pages and search results pages. To support the company's marketing efforts, I also developed assets for social media campaigns that were used to launch new products and promote new brand initiatives.

Having access to a larger team of designers and colleagues with various expertise allowed me to enhance my skills in different areas of design, such as animation and motion graphics. Moreover, I had the opportunity to participate in design thinking workshops and attend conferences, which expanded my knowledge and gave me new ideas for approaching design projects.

Throughout my time at HomeAway UK, I was proud to be part of a team that worked towards improving the user experience of the company's digital products. I contributed to the creation of designs that were both aesthetically pleasing and functional, ensuring that the end users had a seamless and enjoyable experience.

From there, I moved into the world of contracting and re-joined TUI Travel, this time working within their CRM department. My day-to-day tasks involved designing and building responsive emails, as well as supporting the marketing team with any requests.

During this time, I was also asked to oversee the user journey of a customer using their product, which gave me a holistic view of the product. This experience provided me with valuable insights and knowledge into business-led decisions that affect design decisions and the overall customer journey across multiple channels.

After my previous contract ended, I quickly secured another one at Photobox Ltd. This was my first experience of working in an agile environment, with daily morning stand-ups and regular check-ins throughout the day. We would conclude each day with a checkout stand-up to discuss our progress on a particular project.

Once again, my responsibility was to manage their email campaigns, but this time using a dedicated EMS called Taxi for Email. My team and I were able to build emails using modular blocks from a pre-designed master template. One of my tasks was to rebuild this master template, which required collecting and inventorying every email design currently used by the company. I also investigated ways to reduce inconsistencies within each campaign, allowing me to create design guidelines for the CRM team to use as they built new emails using the EMS. These guidelines were then integrated with company-wide guidelines developed by the UX team.

A significant amount of content in these emails needed to be personalized with user-generated content (UGC). As a result, we conducted numerous A/B tests of content and layouts to determine the most effective design and messaging.