Hello, I’m Paul. I’ve spent my career as a Creative Director for some of the world’s biggest brands, leading work from pitch to delivery: the strategy, the teams, the budgets, the slightly terrifying deadlines. But I never handed in my tools. I’m still the one behind the camera, in the edit, and nudging keyframes around at 11pm on a Tuesday.
I’ve spent a career turning ideas into impactful creative work. I started out as a student with a vintage Rolleiflex and a stubborn belief that I could make a career out of it, and ended up running a 50-strong in-house studio and co-founding an award-winning production agency. Turns out the belief was right.
I’ve managed a £2m annual budget for one of the UK’s largest in-house production teams, handled brand and design for a central government department, and led creative for some genuinely recognisable names. In 2015 I co-founded Indigo, which has since become the go-to for Virgin Atlantic, Hilton, Octopus Energy, the NHS and assorted bits of the British state. There are awards on the shelf. They were nice to win.
The thing that makes this work, I think, is that I’ve never quite stopped being the person with the camera. I lead from pitch to delivery, shape strategy, build teams and put the commercial scaffolding in place, but I also still direct, edit, and obsess over animation timing at 11pm on a Tuesday. The craft is the bit that keeps me grounded. The rest is just trying to make sure brilliant work actually gets out into the world.
A small selection from a very large pile. A whole career won’t fit on one page, but here’s the range: film, animation, design and photography, all of it hands-on, none of it run from behind a desk. Filter by category if you’re in a hurry. I won’t take it personally.
National TV campaigns for Saga and pan-European advertising for Hidden Hearing, taken from concept to air under my creative direction. Shoots, edits, clearance and versioning across multiple markets and languages. Broadcast deadlines don’t move. Neither did I.
The hero film for ‘More Than You’ve Heard’, Visit Kent’s relaunch campaign: one day on the coast told three times over, for Gen Z, families and empty nesters. I directed it on a 6K RED through vintage 1960s glass, and the county has never looked better.
Culture and recruitment films for one of the UK’s fastest-growing energy companies, with me leading creative from concept through directing, shoot and edit. Real staff, real stories, no actors, no scripts. The best recruitment tool is the truth, well shot.
Award-winning recruitment films I conceived, directed and produced across the airline’s HQ, training centre and crew gatehouse. Real crew instead of actors was my call, and it won over the airline and the judges at both the FIRM and Recruiter Awards.
More than a decade shaping Saga’s brand across film, brochures and press, latterly as Head of Studio leading a 50-strong creative team. One warm, premium identity held across travel, cruise and financial services. Brand guardianship at serious scale.
A film I directed for the launch of Ebbsfleet Garden City’s GREENmap, selling green space and community for a town built entirely from scratch. I found the story in the wildlife and residents, not the hard hats. The client wanted wellbeing. They got it.
‘Uncorking Potential’, a culinary brand-film campaign I produced and creatively directed for Hilton, rolled out across the UK and EMEA over several seasons. One consistent vision, and a client who kept commissioning more. The kitchens supplied the wine.
When A&O Shearman and Reed Smith wanted the pick of legal talent, they came to me for immersive recruitment films showing a real day inside a top law firm. Real staff on camera, no actors: the same honest formula behind my award-winning recruitment work.
Life Is Worth Hearing, the brand campaign I directed for Hidden Hearing: three cinematic TV adverts for UK and European broadcast, shot on a tight deadline under full COVID restrictions. The client’s marketing director called it ‘the best campaign we’ve ever done.’
Animated explainers for the Strep A public-health campaign: I storyboarded, designed and animated the lot myself, then re-versioned it into Arabic, Polish and Somali. Complex medical guidance made clear and calm, delivered at speed while it mattered most.
Two animations that make dense information watchable: a brand film for data agency Emerald Thinking and a Local Plan explainer for Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council. No clip art, no templates: conceived, scripted, drawn and animated entirely by me.
Two campaigns for the Office for Product Safety and Standards, turning dense import legislation into films people choose to watch: a standout animation series, then Tess, a gloriously lo-fi follow-up that racked up nearly a million views in a single month.
Every creative’s site has one of these. The wall of logos that says ‘look, real companies actually paid me.’ Fair enough then, the companies below have all handed me money in exchange for ideas. Plus a bunch more who didn’t quite fit on the page.
I’ve worked across most creative disciplines, spanning design, film, animation, strategy and campaigns, both making the work myself and leading the teams behind it. What it’s taught me is how closely they all connect, and how the best work comes when they pull together.
Building and leading the teams, studios and budgets that make in-house creative outperform.
I led one of the UK’s largest in-house studios at Saga, a 50-strong team on a £2m budget, and cut reliance on external agencies by 75% while raising the standard of the work. I co-founded Indigo a decade ago and still run it, carrying full P&L and building a team that delivers for global brands, while staying in the edit myself.
Directed, shot and cut, from fifteen-second social to broadcast films made to hold attention.
I’ve spent a career in the edit, directing work for Virgin Atlantic, Hilton, Octopus Energy, the BBC and the NHS, from the NHS national graduate campaign to broadcast brand films. Thousands of videos and more than 150 hours of finished content, all of it made to connect with an audience and earn its place on screen.
Content and channel thinking that ties the creative to real commercial and audience goals.
I led Saga’s shift into digital, social and content, and repositioned its cruise marketing in a way that helped drive a 13% rise in River Cruise revenue and doubled Ocean Cruise profit year on year. My public health work for Kent County Council reached nearly a million people in a month, with click-throughs up 160%.
Integrated ideas that run across TV, out-of-home, digital and social, and earn their reach.
I’ve directed integrated campaigns for some of the world’s biggest brands, including Hilton’s ‘Uncorking Potential’ across the UK and EMEA, and Visit Kent’s biggest-ever coastal campaign, live across 109 London Underground sites with a projected reach of over 20 million. My recruitment films for Virgin Atlantic and Octopus Energy won at the FIRM, ISE and Recruiter Awards.
Positioning, visual systems and the brand thinking that gives the work somewhere to stand.
I led a full rebrand of the Audit Commission, a central government body, building its brand governance from the ground up and giving it a single, consistent voice across every channel. I’ve shaped brand and visual systems for everyone from global names to public bodies, the kind of work that has to look credible and hold up everywhere it appears.
Animation and motion design that adds rhythm and clarity, and makes the message move.
I’m an expert animator and motion designer in After Effects, bringing motion graphics, animation and pace to campaigns across broadcast, digital and social. It’s the craft that turns a flat message into something that moves, whether that’s a title sequence, an explainer, or a fifteen-second social cut that has to land in the first frame.
I co-founded Indigo because the gap was obvious: brands needed a partner who could think strategically as well as point a camera. A decade on, it’s an award-winning film, animation and photography agency working for Virgin Atlantic, Hilton, Octopus Energy and the NHS.
I led one of the UK’s largest in-house studios: fifty people, a £2m budget, and a pointed brief to out-create the external agencies on speed and value. Three years on we’d pulled 75% of that work back in-house, led the shift into digital and video, and built a team I’d back against anyone.
It sounds dry. It wasn’t. I arrived as a Senior Designer and left running the function as Design and Brand Manager, having led a full rebrand and built the organisation’s brand governance from scratch. It’s where I learned that brand is a system, not a logo, and that clarity is a kind of public service.
An independent magazine publisher in Shoreditch, before that was fashionable. As Production and Design Manager I did nearly everything: designing titles cover to back, art-directing the shoots, then teaching myself HTML to build a website for every one. It taught me to do a lot with very little, fast, without dropping the quality.
Guardian News and Media, a fairly serious place to learn your trade. As Assistant Production Manager and Senior Designer I laid out weekly newspaper pages, assisted on art direction, and shipped every issue against a deadline that did not negotiate. Newspapers are an unforgiving teacher, which makes them excellent training for everything after.
