Lizzie's Story
I am an independent Creative Director with a great toolkit of practical skills, and relish opportunities to get together with clever experts and help bring their ideas to life.
People, their stories and their ideas fascinate me. I am all for the brave pioneers, brilliant thinkers, inspiring do-ers and lovely encouragers who go out on a limb to make the world a better place, and I'm here to help get their great messages across – make ideas look beautiful.
I'm excited to have won awards for my work as an independent, and learnt early on from some of the best in the business in design (Lambie-Nairn, BBC) and photography (Magnum). I have worked on my own for nearly 20 years, and love my work on a wonderful range of freelance commissions.
Whether through short film and animation, or special projects that requiring a varied combination of design skills – visual content, websites, presentations for example — I will do my best to help you get to the heart of your message, then communicate your ideas and stories really effectively, applying extensive practical skill and energy, intelligent insight, and (they say) a beautiful artistic vision.
How did she get here? The full story.
After art college in Bournville (Cadbury’s chocolate village, where I grew up) I graduated in 1994 from Brighton University with an Honours degree in Visual Communication. I cut my graduate teeth for two years as a Director’s Assistant at Lambie-Nairn & Co (brand creators for film and TV) in Soho, London. From here I stepped over to the BBC in Bristol, where I was eventually leading cross-platform branding projects, working with BBC Marketing Executives on strategic implementation of their visual brand identity.
Something wasn't right though.
In 2001, after a visit to Nicaragua and Honduras which reflected my growing interest in social justice themes, I left my BBC staff position to focus on my personal work in photography and do something about what I was learning. Following a period of study, I joined Magnum Photos in London on placement, working in the archive, assisting photographers, and later co-ordinating exhibitions for a short while in the Cultural Department until leaving in November 2003. I have subsequently used my photography to support social justice work of charities in South Africa, Peru, Cambodia and Thailand. My most recent exhibition (along with two other photographers) showed work from the trip to South Africa, and told stories of teenagers living on the streets of Durban in support of the work of a few street child charities based both there and in the UK. This show was exhibited at The Menier Gallery in Southwark and also Bradford Cathedral.
My photography commissions include the BBC, many events including ‘Flight to the Past’—a vintage flight festival at Blenheim Palace for Harvey Goldsmith—and a number of private portrait and wedding commissions. I have taken part in group exhibitions held at St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square, Wells Cathedral and Westminster Central Hall.
While lecturing in photography in Bristol, I also managed a design team towards delivery of the BRIT Awards screen package for design group Hello Charlie, designed and illustrated a book, ‘Making Change Happen’ by Jane Northcote, and delivered a major public art commission as part of Bristol’s city centre regeneration programme, installed October 2008.
Since then, my work has come full circle back to film, animation and typography again, notably for The Duke of Northumberland’s team at Alnwick castle and The Museum of Zoology in Cambridge, which was part of a beautiful refit opened by Sir David Attenborough. My work sits alongside Darwin’s original specimens from his Beagle voyage, and to say I’m proud comes nowhere near the truth.
I am based at The Forge in the heart of Bristol, UK, and can be found on a daily basis animating, exploring expressive calligraphy, writing or photographing, and failing that, singing the world's hurts away with an acapella choir, or growing things on our city farm allotment, and just very much enjoying how the adventure keeps coming.