Here's an example of a bespoke website I built recently for the dispute advisor. This is a Blog website for a legal adviser Melissa. Melissa previously had a website on wordpress.com, and wanted to take it to the next level.
I designed her new website using modified brand colours she chose, to give her website a professional look for the legal industry she is in. We looked at websites like moneySavingExpert and Compare The Market for inspiration, then simplified those into something more personal.
If you are a small business looking for an effective website solution where you have control, get in touch.
All the websites I create are bespoke. I don't use existing design templates for any of my clients websites.
All the work is done in-house nothing is found out to external agencies.
I deal directly with all my clients to assess their needs.
Initial website and SEO audit to see what can be improved
Melissa's legal advice website has inspired me to answer some of the questions I often get asked;
"Is Squarespace better than WordPress?"
There are many ways to build a website and many services that do it well. WordPress is an excellent website creation tool, and makes very good websites for businesses of all sizes. Every once in a while I'll can websites to fix, that have been poorly implemented with it. Nearly all of the website services can make good websites provided the designer knows the tool well enough. You just need to pick one. I focus all my expected expertise on WordPress and helping my clients get to grips with it.
WordPress was originally designed as a blogging platform and very quickly became a website creation tool. It is one of the biggest website creators in the world.
"Why is my website so hard to update?"
If you have a website that's not easy to update or is very slow, chances are it's just that your website has been poorly implemented. More likely it's just been created quickly to maximise costs. I can provide a website audit reviewing the condition of the website and making suggestions on how to improve it.
Your website is a marketing tool and should be set up right, so it lets you get on with shouting about your services to yo
"Why does my website is not appear in Google?"
If you can't find your website in search engine results like Google then it needs better search engine optimisation (SEO).
SEO has become a massive industry itself with companies spending a great deal of money to rank highly in search engines. For smaller businesses who don't have large budgets there are simple practical ways to do your own SEO. Using a flexible approach and experimenting yourself may help improve your results the for spending lots of money with with an SEO agency. I offer an SEO audit to look at how your website ranks and how that can be improved.
Over the last few months, I've collaborated with Prof Martin Fitgerald at the University of Bradford, creating illustrations for a card game titled' 'Capturing the Sun'.
Mock-up of box design
The game is designed to help with cognitive restructuring (a term used in CBT) and is aimed at people with long-term psychiatric conditions. Based on the Mouri folk tale of Maui, the Polynesian Demi-god who captures the sun with powerful ropes to make the day last longer. As described in the games manual;
"This game is designed to help people who experience serious mental illness to make their own powerful ropes so they can capture the skills, knowledge and understandings required for recovery, so they too, can live in the light."
It's been a fascinating project to work on as an illustrator, and I've always wanted to illustrate games.
Martin's a fan of monochrome linocut illustration and liked my work, so I leaned into that for these card game illustrations.
Deck cards depicted the terms used in cognitive restructuring, the challenge was then finding the right visual metaphor to describe the term. Some were straightforward, such as 'fortune telling' being depicted by a crystal ball.
Others needed more revisions to get right. We were exploring visual ideas that aren't too prescriptive - or lead to incorrectly interpreting the meaning. In the case of 'Generalizations', the concept sketch began as a fog cloud, which was fine but not very, then an image of different hats, labelled 'hats' to signify the general. This had the opposite effect, being visually interesting but a little confusing for the term it was trying to encapsulate. We settled on a signpost with vague directions like 'here' and 'there', which was a good balance of communication design.
The question cards needed faces. Heads of people from a diversity of backgrounds and ethnicities. As each card poses a dilemma, these folks expressions should be deep in thought, pondering their situation. In early drafts it was easy to push a little too far, drawing folks who looked very stressed out, so expressions were pulled back a little for a more subtle look. A raised eyebrow here or slight pout there was enough to capture what was needed without the character leaning into what could be perceived as negative.
The game also needed a box cover and logo. The logo was based on Mau the sun god and the general feel was simple, using the clarity and monochrome lino-cut aesthetic to give the game it's style. Here's a mock-up of the final cover design of the sun god.
Do you need illustration or graphic design for your next project or want creative input to help put your ideas in motion?
Early sketches, exploring ideas for the box and cards.
I've just completed work on the Childrens University of Manchester learning platform. As a freelance graphic designer, I was first brought in to work on these projects they were created in Flash around 12 years ago. Today, in what's now the final iteration of the website, all the content has been converted into either HTML5 or PDF. The goal has been to take the old, still valuable, learning content and convert it into a (hopefully) future-proof format, so it can live long and prosper.
Some of the original modules were designed by myself, and other older sections by other designers, with all content being created and written by students and staff at the university.
The HTMLs sections didn't need any attention and still work fine.
Making PDF's from old Flash files
The first task was 'harvesting' the original content from old flash files. For content I created I could go back to my source files. With designs not created by myself, I had to be a little more resourceful with only access to SWF files. With flash now deactivated on all web browsers, I used Adobe debugging tool to open the SWF's, and experimented with a few different ways to extract the graphics. From importing the SWFs into an old version of Flash to the rudimentary method of using a high res 2k monitor to screen grab and isolate elements, reduced them, clean up, and even re-traced back into vectors from pixels. This was time-consuming but also offered good results.
Harvesting the text was another challenge. In some cases I got lucky and text from the flash file was being loaded externally from an XML file. The worst case was screen-grabbing text and running it through an OCR program (optical character recognition). This converted graphics into text which then needed proofing to check for things like letter 'o's not showing up as zeros. Again time-consuming but worthwhile.
Once all the content was gathered the new design work could begin. Creating layouts and new graphics where needed to glue together the continuity, or make clear elements that were previously motion graphics.
I was given the flexibility to come up with some new cover images. It's been a bit like being a design archaeologist, unearthing the past. The staff at the university were really pleased with the results and I'd like to think if you came to the website fresh today, You'd just see the learning content, which I hope will be evergreen.
John is a freelance graphic designer based in Manchester with clients around the world. If you have a project or need design advice, contact him here;
Character Design
I was approached by a design agency in Manchester to illustrate robot characters for their client, a tech company who were looking for something quite specific.
I had the free rein to come up with suggestions of robots that would best suit their brand. Out of the ideas I suggested they opted for the detective and their dog.
Character design - pixelsCharacter design - vectorsCharacter designCharacter design
In early sketches, I used a rough and ready style, and also provided a vector version. Vector art can be helpful in reproduction as it can scale to any size, from a pin badge to the side of a van.
In design apps, vector brushes can create very good clean line work, but I still find that they can't quite match the variation and liveliness of line work in pixel form, due to how software needs to process the data. Even converting pixels into vectors with the very best industry tools will smooth off lines and simplify them. I'm sure it won't be long before line work and speed of drawing is captured perfectly in pixels or vectors with no discernible difference, we're very nearly there. Saying that the software doesn't really matter, as long as the end product looks great.
This work was created in clip studio and the vectors in affinity designer. Affinity designer is super fast, but also Clip studio has the ability to export pixels in 4K and 600dpi resolution, which makes bigger files but keeps the aesthetic intact. Whatever gets the job done.
In the last few years, WordPress has gone from strength to strength. I last did a video on WordPress when version five had launched, and now WordPress has 6 even more layout features, making it even more powerful as a website designer's editor of choice.
While new features like page templates and new layout blocks mean that it's not as easy to 'pick up and go' as it used to be, the premise of WordPress is still core - putting the power of editing into the hands of non-technical uses so they can get on with adding content to their websites without worrying how to do it.
The ability to edit headers and footers separately, and change templates and colour schemes on the fly are very helpful and I hope in time will make cumbersome page builders a thing of the past.
As a website designer helping my clients get the best out of their websites and I recommend WordPress for websites.
John Cooper is a website designer and developer working directly with Global clients. Nothing is outsourced. John designs WordPress websites for small and medium businesses around the world since 2008.
Contact John today for a website quote.
Illustration and Motion Graphics
I recently worked with Gorse Hill Studios, creating illustration and video animation for schools on the subject of CCE (child criminal exploitation).
For the brief, I had text descriptions of scenarios that can happen in CCE . Animatics were created - roughly sketched storyboards with movement - so the client could see what the end videos would look like. Voice-over narration was recorded by the Gorse Hill team with school children describing the scenarios they may encounter. The video animation was kept really (really) simple. It's mostly image transitions, as the voice-over was added later, and the turnaround time was really tight.
Illustration and video for schools. This video has no sound.
I'd like to think my signature style works well here, helping to soften the tough message the studio and project leaders are addressing in the work they do in schools.
Working in the educational space is really rewarding as the work has a purpose outside of the aesthetic of the illustrations. Having simple scenarios to work from, as opposed to a script, meant that I could try and tell the story in as fewer frames as possible.
The illustrations where created in ClipStudio then broken into elements. The audio was edited in audacity. These assets were imported into DaVinci resolve for video editing and exported as 1080pHD MP4 for videos. Some colour correction was done Affinity Photo.
illustrated video
motion graphics
animation
Graphic Recording the BCorp Conference
A full day of capturing an event, as is happened. Live drawing, graphic recording, it has many names, is the process where an artist (me!) draws quickly to capture an event as it happens. This is often talks, discussions and Q&A's, visually representing the themes and subjects that are spoken about. Like taking minutes, but much more fun.
It's a great way to document an event and create marketing and publicity material that can be used after the event to share and remind attendees. Also it's great for social media.
Heading off to the Edinburgh festival this year? Need posters, flyers and a social media pack for all your online stuff? I've got you covered.
How about some illustration to really make your idea pop out? Edinburgh is a tough space to promote in at festival time (I should know), publicity needs to be super targeted so potential punters can see what you're about in the 2 seconds it takes to walk by your poster. Get in touch for a quote.
Toby Foster's DiscoPoster illustration designComedy at the KingsBranding and logo design - Wentworth Music Festival
Character Design
A selection of character design work from books and publicity.
Illustration for Innovation.
Teaming up with animation studio The Outset to create an animated video for Innovate UK.
I was given a script to work with and provided storyboards and illustrations. They were then broken into assets and given to The Outset to animate and produce. Creating work that's purpose-driven is a real goal of mine, as is collaborating with other talented creatives. It was a pleasure to be brought onto this project for my signature style of illustration work. See the full video below.
Making Presentations is a training company that specialises in presenting skills, online and face to face.
The design work, logo, icons and deck slides are all bespoke. This is communication design, where the artwork has a very specific job to. The icons are more detailed illustrations, to keep online attendees engaged longer. The series of deck slides also are illustrations, in a simple neutral style to connect with as broad a demographic as possible and guide the attendees through their training journey.
Making Presentations founder Richard Pascoe put a lot of thought into what he needed for his artwork slide deck, and it shows.
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