About Alan Sawyers and asdesignuk…

In brief…

I am a freelancer specialising in graphic design, web design and marketing. asdesignuk is born out of a series of collaborative efforts between me and other freelancers, whose skills and talents complement my own to bring together a mini-agency offering. I often refer to my work as asdesignuk work as, unlike many people you’ll meet in my industry, I won’t take full credit where there has been third-party involvement.

As you’ll see from my portfolio galleries, I work or have worked on behalf of brands, people and companies including Toyah Willcox, Stagecoach North East, megabus.com, East Midlands Trains, Spark Response, De Agostini and Unique Driving Tution, the people who eventually succeed in teaching me to drive!

In full….

I’ve had an interest in design from an early age, and it manifested itself during a Media course I took at Newcastle College, 1994-1996. The course covered radio, TV, film, music and drama, but it was the “print/2D media” module where I found my career direction. From there, I went on to study Communications and eventually Art & Design, specialising in information graphics and newspaper design. I found further direction on this course, developing skills and knowledge in areas like typography, use of colour and use of space – the importance of which had never been a feature of previous courses.

Whilst studying, I was asked to design CD artwork for a local-founded band, PictureCenter, who were successful in Europe, frequently played the London live circuit and were produced by Ian Catt (St. Etienne). I completed artwork for their album Our True Intent Is All For Your Delight and their official website in early 2003. Shortly after this I became responsible for the technical up-keep of the official website of singer and actress Toyah Willcox.

Initially updating bio, discography and galleries, work accelerated as Toyah’s popularity grew to new heights following her stint in I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! I carried out several mini-re-launches of the site between 2003 and 2006. In the meantime, on the back of new and re-found celebrity status, record companies lined up to reissue Toyah’s back catalogue. I started to get involved with the Toyah reissues program by scanning and cleaning up photos and record sleeves for use in artwork packages. By 2005 I was designing the packages myself and produced full artwork for the reissue of Toyah’s classic eighties live album Toyah! Toyah! Toyah! and the first UK issue of 1994′s Japan-only Take The Leap! album. Also in 2005, I designed the cover and booklet of Toyah’s first ever music DVD release, Wild Essence: Live In The 21st Century – a recording of a concert I attended and have a blink-and-you-miss-me cameo in!

Then, in the Autumn of 2007, as Toyah was about to unleash her first digital single and first full length album in 13 years on the world, I fully re-designed and re-launched toyahwillcox.com, designed the digital sleeve for Latex Messiah (Viva La Rebel In You) and prepared for the album release the following summer. In The Court Of The Crimson Queen was released in September to fan and critical acclaim and saw Toyah propelled into two years of almost back-to-back gigs and shows.

Since then, Toyah has teamed up with her Musical Director Chris Wong and REM musician Bill Rieflin to form her band The Humans. Along with part-time member and full-time husband Robert Fripp, the band released their debut album We Are The Humans in May 2009. Initially sold as a limited edition in Estonia (where the material was conceived, recorded and first performed) and online, a full UK release followed in late 2009 along with a digital single, These Boots Are Made For Walkin’, which was also made available as a promo/radio CD. All artwork for The Humans releases has been designed by me in partnership with what Toyah calls her ‘great team’ – a team that includes her official photographer Dean Stockings and (in her words) Toyahographer and (in mine) one of my closest friends, Craig Astley – executive producer on much of the Toyah reissues program and on toyahwillcox.com.

As we await the second Humans album and “second” Toyah album (the follow up to Crimson Queen which in reality will be her 16th), 2010 sees the release of Dreamchild: Special Edition – the latest in the reissues program – as well as a Japanese release of Crimson Queen.

Staying in 2010, my first major brand launch is about to happen. In June, citylink gold will become known to the Great British (or Great Scottish) public as a brand new luxury coach service linking Glasgow to Aberdeen and Inverness. The brainchild of Stagecoach Group founder Brian Souter, and a joint-venture with Scottish Citylink Coaches, the service positions itself as the business class of bus travel, boasting luxury coaches, onboard attendants, free snacks and refreshments and free wireless connection. I was approached to create a brand and creative plan for the launch of the service.

My vision was to create something that combined the style and class of Stagecoach Group’s East Midlands Trains brand with the “customer first” feel of the Stagecoach UK Bus divisions (in particular Stagecoach North East, with whom I have worked since 2007). I conceived and designed a series of illustrations that were produced by a talented North East Illustrator, Simon Howard. A suite of marketing materials, onboard catering products and a brochure site (www.citylinkgold.co.uk, which feeds-in transactional functionality from Citylink’s existing booking system) have been prepared for full service launch in July.

The call from Stagecoach North East came in summer 2007 when I was asked to update some existing artwork that had been produced at a national level for the UK Bus division’s unirider student travel product. Since then, I have worked on the unirider campaign three years running (fourth coming up) and have maintained and developed my relationship with Stagecoach, having worked on over 200 individual items for over 20 Stagecoach brands, companies and products to date, including megabus.com, megatrain.com and megabusplus.com, City Sightseeing NewcastleGateshead, megarider, East Midlands Trains and, of course, citylink gold.

Stagecoach Group projects have given me exposure to a vast array of design items, as I have produced everything from flyers, posters, postcards and brochures, to depot health and safety booklets, onboard vinyls and full vehicle wraps, to exhibition material, point of sale items and promotional giveaways, bus stop signage, phonebox vinyls and huge billboard posters…. you name it…

Specifically, my work for megabus.com has been a ‘journey’ of brand development. The brand was created by design agency McKinstrie Wilde in 2003 and I was approached by Stagecoach in 2008 to produce some marketing and promotional materials. Today, I am responsible for the majority of megabus.com artwork and have recently created a suite of standard and customisable items for use by national Stagecoach Marketing Managers, megabus.com operational staff and all UK ticket agencies and travelshops through whom megabus.com tickets can be booked. The items are ordered via a graphical web interface created by print specialist Alphagraphics, who print and deliver the items (posters, flyers, stationery, point of sale, promotional goods).

As part of the brand development, I assisted in the launch of megabusplus.com in 2009. I developed the new brand’s logo and created pre and post-launch press ads, flyers, phonebox vinyls and large format posters.

Also in 2009, I commissioned the re-drawing of the megabus.com “Sid” character. Previously only available as a flattened image, the character could not be edited and the file format made large format print difficult and artwork files persistently large. This was the first project I was to work on with Simon Howard, who succeeded in recreating Sid pixel for pixel as a vector graphic.

Excited by the new editable and scalable illustration, I commissioned a series of new Sids, including a ‘winking’ Sid, ‘pointing’ Sid and ‘whilstling’ Sid. Following this, and to coincide with the launch of a megabus.com digital affiliate marketing program, three new family members were created for the mega brand – Sadie, Sybil and Sam. Two of these new additions to the family have appeared in what is consistently one of the top three affiliate marketing web banners.

As my relationship with Stagecoach has developed, my involvement has extended beyond design, often playing a role in the conception, planning and copywriting elements of various marketing and communications projects. This is evident on the 2010 Try It On The Bus (Dot Com) campaign, which aims to get commuters out of their cars and onto buses. I put together a creative plan and concept, co-project managed the marketing plan and commissioned a series of bespoke images from Newcastle-based art photographer Saša Savić, with whom I have worked closely on a brand management project frequently since 2007. I also sourced two of the four external models for the campaign. The result is a stylish and striking brand communication for the Stagecoach megarider product.

I first commissioned Saša Savić in 2007 to provide a suite of images for a brand re-development project for Gateshead-based eCommerce Fulfilment and Contact Center specialist, Spark Response. To date, Saša has taken over 1,000 images that now form a major part of Spark’s brand and have contributed to the regeneration of all of its marketing communications.

My relationship with Spark pre-dates my freelance career, as I started working for the company as a contact centre temp in 2004, shortly after finishing a post-graduate college course in web design. My true vocational colours refusing to stay dormant, I offered my services as designer to Spark when a major new client from the travel industry was about to launch a large summer contact centre project with the company. A number of ‘posters’ had been produced by a telephony team leader – a process that had included black and white A4 printing, the use of coloured pens and ‘crinkle’ scissor cutting. Offering advice to the contact centre’s managers that their big new client were about to enter a dedicated space within their new partner’s offices “only to find that the children from a local school had apparently been brought-in to provide the internal comms materials”, I got to work on a number of poster designs that would be printed in A0 size by a large format print specialist and avoid embarrassment for Spark with the client.

After being offered a job with a design studio in 2005, I found myself being compelled to accept the alternative and slightly more challenging option of staying with Spark in order to implement many of the ideas I had put forward to the company’s MD following the first design project. I spent the rest of 2005 and 2006 carrying out a weird and wonderful array of roles, all of which were side-lined by communications and marketing projects, including the launch of a staff newsletter and employee reward scheme (both of which are still going strong in 2010). Eventually, the sideline projects would overtake the rest of my duties, which were ‘shed’ in order to make way for an almost self-created marketing and communications management role, which covered all aspects of marketing, internal comms, advertising, PR, design and elements of sales.

Today, as a freelancer, I have retained my involvement with Spark, continuing to develop the brand and the company’s MARCOMS strategies. Since I initiated a soft re-launch of the brand following the first Saša Savić photosession and re-design and re-fresh of Spark’s corporate brochure site in 2007, the company has reported its first three years in profit (years ending June 2008, 9 and 10) and two years of more new client wins than in any other on record, experiencing growth and profitability despite tough economic conditions and industry downturn. The re-structuring of Spark’s sales and marketing strategies undoubtedly played its part in this.

This brings us up to date, not forgetting to mention some of my other current commitments: my first eCommerce site Avoca Online, growing PR company Velvet Communications, the Teal Arms pub in Ingleby Barwick and Lifecoat North East, the latest venture of a man who used to be my boss – and kind of still is! I currently run my freelance business from a small purple office in the home I share with my partner Nic, who also shares more and more of my workload as time goes by (and designed the background of this website).