Hello! I’m a UK based web designer and developer. Open to opportunities – Read more about me
Welcome
I‘m Barry, I have been working as a creative web developer for several years on a variety of projects. I currently work with the great people at dxw for a variety of public and third-sector organisations.
Working within the public sector has instilled in me a strong appreciation for web standards, accessibility and user centred design. These principles form my baseline. From there I seek to bring understated creative flair using typography, hierarchy, animation and colour.
I‘m a design minimalist, I believe small changes make big differences. I take a pragmatic approach and I‘m sympathetic to client and user needs. I have endless curiosity and desire to figure out how to improve a piece of the UI, or find that elusive “pop”
I call myself a design engineer because I like to occupy the intersection of visual design and web development. I find the two disciplines equally captivating.
Skills and Expertise
- HTML/DOM
- CSS/SASS
- Figma
- Vanilla JS
- Git
- WordPress
- React
- PHP
- Three.js
People talk a lot about their “happy place”. For me it’s being creative and experimenting. Playing around, learning new languages, libraries and tools and working towards meeting a need or providing something of value.
I have experience in many phases of development, with varying levels of involvement within Agile and Kanban development teams.
I have created initial wireframes, built interactive prototypes, assisted user research sessions, developed mockups in Figma, held collaborative design sessions and worked with other developers in production build. Aswell as the less flashy things like responding to support requests, conducting accessibility audits and the necessary remediation work.
Things I think about
Work samples coming soon!
My story so far
dxw
dxw is a digital agency that works with the public and third sectors to achieve better outcomes for citizens and business, and replacing legacy systems with more efficient and sustainable digital products
After a spell of freelancing, I was offered a permanent role within the GovPress team. Focussing on content managed websites for our clients. Much of my work is updating websites with new brand guidelines and migrating to the new Gutenburg block editor.
My first project was the design of the Screen Culture 2033 strategy micro-site and blog. I also paired with the tech-lead in the development of the site, using WordPress and utilising elements from BFI’s style guide.
I also joined the Interaction Design team to develop a tool for Probation officers to find temporary accommodation for prison leavers at risk of homelessness. Using the gov.uk design system and elements from the MoJ pattern library, I designed the service up until nation-wide rollout. Responding to several rounds of user testing.
Freelance
I have done various contracts for companies in London
Fat Beehive
Fat Beehive are a digital agency serving the charity sector. I was involved in wireframing, look and feel design and build of several websites including The British Academy, Chevening and Croydon Pride.
Geckoboard
Geckoboard produce TV dashboards to display key performance data for customer service and SAAS companies. I worked on the main website, and various campaign landing pages.
Shelter
Working within the digital and marketing teams, I was involved in the build of landing pages and email campaigns using the brand guidelines. I also did some front-end work on the main website, addressing support requests.
Fat Beehive
Fat Beehive are a digital agency serving the charity sector. I was involved in wireframing, look and feel design and build of several websites including The British Academy, Chevening and Croydon Pride.
Recipe
Recipe are an advertising agency. I worked on their advertising marketplace web app, linking companies looking for ad space with networks. Involved in the discovery phase, wireframing and mockups.
Helpful Digital
Helpful do training and web builds for government initiatives and charities. I designed and built various websites including a government owned property company and a fund for tech startups in Africa. I also worked on various digital tools Helpful use for crisis traning.
Hamilton Brown
Hamilton-Brown is a full-service creative agency based in London. They deliver dedicated B2B support where and when needed for regional and global clients.
As part of the digital team designing and developing B2B marketing and campaign websites, I was instrumental in transitioning our build process from page-builder tools to bespoke WordPress development. I designed and assited the development of a storefront for a corporate accounting company that sells various digital accounting tools. And maintained the product through multiple releases over the course of about a year.
Stepladder
Stepladder is a branding agency that specialises in the high-end commercial property market. Capturing the energy of spaces through strategic thinking and distinctive creative campaigns.
Stepladder produces printed material to an extremely high standard of quality, using high grade materials and cutting-edge printing techniques. I was brought in to extend this standard to their online material. Working with the designers to translate their brand designs to digital form. I produced interactive interfaces for users to find out about local amenities, infrastructure and the characteristics of the spaces themselves — maps, representations of floor plans and various layout configurations.
What's next?
I am looking for a job where I have the opportunity to both use my existing experience and diversify my current skill-set by learning new things, as I firmly believe in learning by doing. My perfect employer would be a small to medium sized company that doesn’t have a rigid adherence to siloed job roles. And a company that creates value by doing something innovative and perhaps against the mould. I am passionate about new technologies and paradigms. Decentralised protocols such as Bitcoin and Nostr interest me greatly.
If you have something you think I’d be interested in, please drop me an email!