Immersive online learning

As Chief Design Officer at Circus Street, I directed the look and feel of the lessons collaborating with animators and production teams to simplify complex narratives and craft compelling visuals that supported the brand identity.

I was always focused on the bigger picture, ensuring every element aligned seamlessly with the overarching business strategy.

My vision extended across the ecosystem, uniting the website, platform, UX, branding and even office spaces into a cohesive brand experience.

This helped position Circus Street as not just a learning platform but a world-class brand that is innovative, engaging, and trusted.

Making the CS brand stand out

We achieved stand out for the Circus Street brand by ensuring consistency across all touchpoints. By building robust design systems and aligning teams with the brand's visual tone, I maintained a cohesive identity while fostering creative innovation.

To prevent "design creep," I provided frameworks like detailed style guides, component libraries, and regular review sessions. Open communication, cross-team workshops, and collaborative critiques ensured the brand's essence stayed intact, whilst empowering designers to innovate within a unified vision.

  • Great Photography

    Stepping into Circus Street means entering a world of wonder. I avoided generic office photography, opting instead for imagery that sparks imagination and reflects the creativity of the learning experience. Each photo was carefully stylised to create a sense of fantasy and align seamlessly with the lesson environments, ensuring a cohesive and recognisable journey from posters to the website and to the learning platform.

  • Consistent Campaigns

    At Circus Street, I maintained consistency across all creative outputs. I collaborated with teams to build design systems that aligned to the visual tone of voice. To prevent design creep and to ensure that new ideas would fit within the brand framework, I created style guides, workshops, and regular reviews to reinforce a cohesive, impactful identity.

  • Dynamic Presentation Assets

    I encourage teams to keep presentations simple - fewer slides, but with the right dynamic assets to drive home key points. It’s about balancing clarity and impact, ensuring every element reflects the brand’s tone of voice whilst delivering the message.

  • Abstract Images

    To differentiate from competitors, we chose abstract, aspirational visuals over generic illustrations. These images offered the flexibility to convey diverse messages across posters and social ads whilst maintaining a cohesive brand identity. They sparked curiosity and invited interpretation, giving the brand a timeless appeal that avoided fleeting trends.

  • Not Just Business Cards

    Branding should go beyond tote bags and business cards. I aimed to make it more meaningful for employees by creating personalised avatar mugs when they passed their probation. Seeing the excitement on their faces as they received their unique mug was a powerful moment - it fostered a sense of pride and belonging. This personal touch not only deepened employees’ connection to the brand but also resonated when gifted to clients, reinforcing a culture of creativity and inclusivity.

Directing engaging production

The brief was to design inviting environments that could be used across multiple subjects. This required creating modular, easily updatable lessons whilst maintaining engagement. I art directed multiple details - from environment design, set dressing, wardrobe and posture - to ensure a consistent style that reinforced the brand’s tone of voice and enhanced the learning experience.

  • Immersive Visual Effects

    With a strong background in visual effects, I bring expertise in supervising and directing VFX shots that seamlessly place presenters into 3D environments. As well as being visually stunning, these environments are carefully crafted to support and enhance the narrative. By blending the presenter’s interactions with the 3D world, we guide learners through complex topics in a way that feels immersive, dynamic and engaging.

  • Interactive Learning Games

    To truly embed knowledge, learning needs to go beyond passive consumption. That’s why I worked closely with the team to design interactive games and scenarios that allowed learners to actively apply their understanding. These experiences were carefully developed to make abstract ideas tangible and ensure that learners retained and applied their knowledge in practical ways.

  • Simplifying with Animations

    When it comes to explaining complex topics, simplicity is key. I collaborated with a talented team of animators to create dynamic animations that broke down challenging subjects into clear, logical visuals. These animations both informed and engaged learners. By transforming technical information into compelling and easy-to-follow narratives, we ensured learners stayed focused and absorbed even the most complex material.

UX Guidance

We used data and feedback from market insights to allow us to create user focused designs that align with our business objectives. This process allowed me to lead design sprints and build prototypes. Priorities were accessibility, maintaining scalable design systems and collaborating with engineers on the product road map. Post-launch, we focused on continuous improvement, ensuring products solve real user problems while staying efficient and consistent.

B2B website

Integrating new

brand & tech

You’ve user-tested, defined your strategy, and set the brand vision—but how do you implement your designs with limited engineering capacity? I identified quick wins that can be achieved within a few sprints by collaborating with product managers. Using the MoSCoW method, we prioritised essential elements and planned phased rollouts that balanced business goals and technical feasibility.

Best practices include building modular design systems for gradual, consistent integration and leveraging reusable components to streamline adoption. A/B testing validates small updates with minimal disruption, whilst collaborative design workshops with engineers ensures alignment and feasibility. This phased approach embeds new brand elements effectively and maintains integrity across the platform.

Designing the Physical Space

I believe branding should extend beyond the digital realm into the physical environment, reflecting the organisation's ethos in the spaces where people work and collaborate. Thoughtfully designed offices help employees and clients connect with the brand's culture and also attract talent, retain teams, and inspire creativity.

Creating 3D in

Maya / Unreal

I like to know how lighting interacts with real environments to create the right atmosphere for staff. To this end, I use high-end tools like Maya and Unreal Engine to simulate realistic changes in lighting throughout the day, ensuring the designs work from multiple angles.

Using Unreal Engine enables immersive fly through presentations, giving clients a clear sense of scale and proportion. Maya provides precise, photorealistic representations of textures and colours. This approach ensures clients can confidently visualise and connect with the space before construction begins.

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