Creative Mornings Brisbane
I was invited to speak at the Brisbane chapter of the world’s largest creative community, Creative Mornings
An early morning start at The Forefront, Brisbane
Growth
I was recently invited to do a presentation for Brisbane-based creatives as part of Creative Mornings.
Creative Mornings is a global initiative, gathering across 70 countries to bring creative communities together for local chapter events in cities all around the world.
As part of the Brisbane chapter, I presented on the theme of ‘Growth’ and gave my presentation on growing a design business with social media to a room full of attendees at The Forefront. a local co-working space.
About 70 or so people showed up at 7:30am, which meant an early drive up from the Gold Coast for me! But it was well worth the trip to be able to connect with creative legends in the area, and meet a few members of my Designerrrs™ Community in person!
After the session we wrapped up with some Q&A and coffee, and I even picked up an enamel BNE pin as a souvenir!
Thanks to Soma (rhymes with “comma”) and the team for having me. There more pictures from the event here.
Adobe MAX L.A. 2025
Now that the dust has settled after my most hectic time of year, I can finally recap on the whirlwind that was Adobe MAX 2025.
Using all the tech on stage at Adobe MAX L.A. 2025
The highlight of my year
Now that the dust has settled after my most hectic time of year, I can finally recap on the whirlwind that was Adobe MAX 2025.
Boy was I put to work! This year my trip consisted of…
An appearance on a live Q&A panel with Jamie Brindle, Chris Do and Adrian Per, the moment I landed in LA
A full day, pre-conference summit with the Adobe teams
I performed two presentations at Adobe MAX, each performed twice over the three days
An appearance at the Adobe Illustrator booth, demoing some of the new tools
Multiple evening events, including a VIP drinks with some huge names in the creative world
Turning Likes into Leads
My first talk was discussing how I’ve embraced social media to help me bring in leads for my logo design business, turning viral views into paying customers. I’d already had the chance to perform this one on stage in London, so I was more confident presenting this talk.
It went down really well. The audience was so receptive, so much so that I’m considering turning this talk into some kind of online course. Details to come on that one!
My second presentation was more of a demo on how to go faster in Adobe Illustrator, so I was way more nervous for this one. So much could go wrong as I was presenting live in the software, with cameras on stage to showcase how I use hardware peripherals to help me go faster. There was even an audience participation section where I brought a volunteer on stage and timed them performing a series of tasks in Illustrator, before I blew their time out of the water with a custom action.
The second time I presented (on the final day) Allan Peters was in the audience, so I brought him up on stage he became my volunteer! The result was an unbelievable memory and a really special moment (Allan is a hero of mine), although I’m not sure he’s going to forgive me for putting him on the spot like that.
Catching up with friends
Adobe MAX is a special occasion and a great reason for old friends to be in the same place together. This year was no exception, and I was lucky enough to hang out with not only Allan Peters, but Kristy Campbell (including meeting her entire family, baby and all), Vanessa Rivera, Aaron Nace, Chris Do, Aaron Draplin, Robin Son, Arabela and Elle from the Weekend Creative, MIchael Fugoso, Paul Trani and the one and only Magdiel Lopez.
Magdiel has become a real friend over the last few years. While I was sat with him during the pre-conference summit, I received an airdrop from him to my iPhone of his new artwork, displayed as this year’s Photoshop splash screen! To be with him while he got to announce this at the conference was such a special moment, and I was honoured to be in his presence.
Magdiel’s unbelievable artwork for this year’s Photoshop splash screen
Glowing reviews
I’ve been working harder on my public speaking over the last few years, jumping at the chance to be on stage wherever I can, and practising the art of delivering confidently in front of a large group of people. I’ve got a long way to go (I still rely heavily on my notes) but I relish the opportunity to do this, and I’m so grateful to Adobe for giving me this platform.
All the speakers at Adobe MAX are treated to a speaker ready room, where can freshen up, grab some food and prepare for our sessions. It’s a great place to hang out and get to know the other speakers. And there’s one thing we all have in common, in that we’re all keeping a beady eye on our session scores!
At the end of each session, the attendees are invited to fill out a survey on the talk they just watched. All the speakers watch these results closely because if you do well, it’s likely that you’ll be invited back next year.
And I’m so pleased to report that I got some great scores this year. It’s so validating, because these presentations take me months to perfect. So to hear that they’ve gone down well is so rewarding. I’ve got a long way to go, as there were a few instances where between the British accent and a bit of mumbling here and there, some people found me hard to understand.
In short, my content is great, I just need to work on my delivery!
Thanks again to Adobe for having me, and fingers crossed I see you all next year!
Thank you for my silver plaque
After an unbelievable 90-day stretch on YouTube, I have just received my 100K subscribers pack in the mail.
100K YouTube subscribers!
After an unbelievable 90-day stretch on YouTube, I have just received my 100K subscribers pack in the mail.
I still haven’t really ventured into long-form content just yet (aside from a 1.5 hour Illustrator course), but thanks to YouTube Shorts, and a culmination of a few viral videos, we went soaring past the 100,000 subscribers mark last month.
The video that sparked the uptick was my HBO logo story. Watch the video here. Something about the vindication element of the video really resonated with people, and this video alone led to almost 30,000 new subscribers.
21,124,695 views!
The numbers are quite ridiculous.
Between an unhinged rendition of “Bye Bye Bye”, to a well-timed Snap-to-pixel video, the channel has had 21,124,695 views in the last 90 days.
But more importantly for my business, the views have led to real client work. We have some unbelievably high profile projects coming up, and it’s all thanks to working a bit harder on social media.
Thank you
I’m so grateful to everyone who has signed up. The support has been wonderful to see.
If you’d like to watch my celebratory video, where I go into a bit more detail about the illusions behind the YouTube logo, you can watch it here:
Adobe MAX London 2025
Another day, another international speech… 😜 I went back to the UK for this year’s Adobe MAX London.
Silent disco!
Less than a week after getting home from Creative South, I was back on a plane heading to Adobe MAX London!
Last year (2024) I went to do an Adobe Live stream from this one-day conference at Battersea Park. This year MAX was held at a new venue, The Magazine which is right next door to the O2 in Greenwich. I actually used to live down the road in Blackheath, so this was a trip down memory lane for me as I traversed the streets I used to run on while training for the London Marathon.
Coincidentally enough, the conference was held on the Thursday before this year’s marathon, so my hotel was surrounded by joggers getting in those last-minute miles.
It was only fitting that I included this Greenwich/London Marathon reference in my speech this year, titled Turning Likes to Leads; Navigating Social Media as a Designer. This was a 45-minute speech I performed to a dark room of about 200 people, each wearing a set of headphones, silent disco-style. This was a unique situation for me, and it was necessary because the other speeches were right next door, screened off by only a curtain (meaning any audio would have leaked through and disrupted the other talks).
On top of this I also ran a 30-minute live stream on the Adobe Live Youtube channel, where I was asked to do some creative exploration using Adobe Firefly. I’ll be honest, anytime I mention generative AI in my videos, the response is… mixed. People generally don’t respond well its use, so I was nervous about this one.
I decided to run a tutorial on how I use Firefly to make a colouring in book for my children (the most innocent use of AI I could think of). We made 6 colouring sheets in a black and white line drawing style using real prompts from my kids. E.g. “black and white line drawing, vector art of a stegosaurus wearing roller skates”. I then turned this into a zine using an A4 sheet of paper, and Clara Galan (host) and I folded and cut these live on camera.
It felt like an episode of Blue Peter, where I brought out a “here’s one I made earlier” sheet and we cut and folded the zines together.
Ahead of the event, and in and around rehearsals, I also attended a full day design summit with the Adobe Community team, where I got a sneak peek at some of the new features coming out in Illustrator, Indesign, Photoshop and Premiere Pro. It was also an opportunity to hang out with some of my Instagram design pals, including Ollie Spicer, Robin Son, Jack Watson, Morgan Hastie, Abi Lee and then eventually CJ Cawley showed up for the main conference! FYI, these guys all sat front row for my talk. 👊
But best of all was catching up with Liz Mosley, who ran two of her own talks this year and as nervous as she was, she absolutely crushed it. We rode cabs all over London going back and forth between rehearsals and had a right old natter!
I rounded up the week with the mother of all nights out, starting out with drinks with Bart Van de Wiele and Rob de Winter, chatting all things process and presentations. Then Kladi Vergine hosted us for dinner (thank you Kladi) where I sat with my old mate Tony Harmer and met the lovely Tigz Rice. I then went for a quick drink at the O2 with the ‘design-fluencers’ (CJ, Robin, Morgan and co), before wrapping up the evening for a night cap with the Adobe keynote speakers and senior team in the hotel bar, including Paul Trani, Elise Swopes, Lucy Street and Kelly Weldon.
Special shout out to Michael Fugoso and the wildly talented Kei Meguro (all the way from Tokyo) and their pal Joe Allam, who looked after me the entire week. It was so fun hanging out with you all.
Creative South 2025
I left this conference about 5kg heavier, with a suitcase full of stickers and bunch of new friends.
Meeting my hero Allan Peters
I first heard about Creative South from my friend Dave Clayton after our podcast together in 2022. After our interview he started raving about this design conference in America, where everyone hugs you, you get stuffed with great food and you get to watch talks and do workshops with absolute design legends.
A couple of years later, my friends Kristy Campbell and James Martin are there as speakers. Kristy posts a teary vlog on her social media about how wonderful this conference is; about how you ‘come as friends and leave as family’.
So when the wonderful Mike Jones, founder of Creative South, invited me to do a speech at this year’s conference in Columbus, Georgia, I jumped at the chance.
I went via Canada because it was $1000 cheaper! That turned out to be a big mistake… 😬
The first hurdle was the distance. This was a monumental trip, which started on the Gold Coast, went through Vancouver and on to Montreal where I missed my connection and ended up staying the night. Then a flight to Atlanta, followed by an hour long bus journey to Columbus. It took 56 hours, door-to-door, and it was brutal.
But when I finally arrived at my hotel at 1am, Mike was in the lobby waiting to give me my first of many hugs that week.
If you’ve never met Mike before, he’s a 6’ 4” man mountain (former football player) and when he hugged me I felt like a baby. By the end of the week (and after a few drinks), Mike would be picking me up and carrying me like a Disney Princess. He is huge, and would be incredibly intimidating, if it weren’t for the fact that he is one of the warmest and most-generous people on the planet.
On stage performing my speech
Creative South is a two-day event, packed with speeches from design legends from all over the globe. I would be joining the likes of the lovely Elle and Arabella from Weekend Creative (who I’d met a couple of times at Adobe MAX), Mike and Chara from the legendary Smith & Diction, Katie and Ilana from Goodtype, Scott Fuller from Studio Temporary and Dan Lee, an incredibly-talented lettering artist who I’ve followed for some time.
But the highlight for me was to finally meet my hero Allan Peters in person.
Allan and I have become fast friends over the past couple of years (Al leaves me the cutest voice notes on a regular basis), but we’ve never met, so to hang out with him IRL was a true blessing (we ended playing darts and Mario Kart on the last night until the early hours).
On top of this, Shawn and Massimo from the Angry Designers Podcast were there all week. And I spent almost the entire trip hanging out with these two, from the bus journey in, recording two live podcast episodes and many many drinks.
As someone who lives on the other side of the planet, I found myself in familiar company among friends and colleagues I’ve had the pleasure of chatting to and working with over the past few years. And it was a truly wonderful experience getting to know everybody. There was a huge range of creative people there, from students just getting started (and working with the Creative South Foundation) to older, more-experience professionals looking to recharge their creative batteries.
I ran my Beyond the PSD Template workshop on the first day to a room full of designers hungry to learn about levelling up their Photoshop game and making customised mockups for their logo clients. And on day two, the enegmatic Andrew Hochradel introduced me on stage where I would perform my talk, See One Do One Teach One: Master your software by sharing your learnings.
Everything went down without a hitch and I left the conference about 5kg heavier, with a bunch of new friends and a suitcase full of stickers.
P.S. Check out this wonderful sketch note of my speech, created by Alejo Porras…
Metalama picks up five awards
This project with Postsharp Technologies is one of the proudest logos I’ve completed.
My project with Postsharp Technologies has picked up a number of awards, including a coveted AGDA Merit recognition, which is the Australian Graphic Design Association.
AGDA Awards 2024 - Merit Award, Logos, Trademarks & Symbols
ODA Awards 2024 - Winner in Brand Strategy
ODA Awards 2024 - Gold in Brand Identity
Indigo Awards 2024 - Gold in Branding for Technology
Titan Brand Awards 2024 - Gold for Best Logo Design / Best Brand Identity
PostSharp and Metalama are two frameworks that help software developers improve their code quality and productivity through meta-programming. President & Principal Engineer Gael Fraiteur needed help branding the new product, Metalama, in a way that harmonised with the current branding for PostSharp, which already had a lot of traction in the market. So I’d need to stick to the current colours and fonts, but introduce a new icon for Metalama, which would be the flagship product moving forward.
One of the requirements from Gael’s brief was that the logo shouldn’t be too playful. It was very tempting to come up with illustrated concepts that depicted a llama, but in the end I would need to find a solution that reflected the industry, but would be taken seriously.
The ‘sharp’ # symbol in the parent company name represented the C# programming language that the framework is used for. And I managed to find an abstract llama shape inside a stylised version of a # symbol. By introducing small separations in the design, we could keep the overall shape of the symbol, while revealing the llama icon in a subtle way.
