creative strategy and direction
hello.
Writer. Creative strategist. A few other things depending on who's asking. I've spent the last decade helping individuals, not-for-profits and ASX-listed companies say what they actually mean. Published in a medical journal. Written across more platforms than I can keep track of. Self-published a recipe book because…why not. What I'm really good at is reading people: what they say, what they don't, what they actually need. The rest is storytelling, and that's the bit I love most.
Currently taking on partnerships and select projects.
Rather type than talk?
Thank you for reaching out, I'll be in contact shortly.
how I work.
-
Your logo can wait. Your customers can't.
The first thing we'll do is sit down with a coffee and talk. Not about fonts or colours, about you, why you started this and who you're trying to reach. Then I go digging. Your website, your socials, your reviews, the emails customers send you and the same for every competitor worth worrying about. I want to know who's buying, who isn't and what everyone else in your space is promising. That's usually where the gap is, and the gap is where your brand lives. Once I can see it, the design decisions mostly make themselves.
-
You didn't hire me to say "great question".
When you ask me what I think, I'll tell you. You'll get one clear recommendation and the thinking behind it, so you can see how I got there. If you don't agree, tell me. Honestly, some of my favourite work came out of a client pushing back and us landing somewhere neither of us expected.
-
I'm not here to be agreed with.
If something isn't working, I'll say so, and that includes my own ideas. I'd rather kill a concept I love than watch you pay for something that looks great and doesn't do what we set out to do. It's not always comfortable, but you're paying for my judgement, and that's what it looks like.
-
No silence. No surprises.
I've spent over a decade in communications, and the projects that fall apart are the ones where people stop talking. Someone goes quiet, assumptions creep in, and by the time anyone speaks up, it's already gone sideways. I run mine differently. Everything gets mapped out at the start, broken into clear steps and tracked in a project set-up you can see. You'll always know where we're up to, what's coming next and roughly when. If something slips, you'll hear it from me before you have to ask.
-
"Fun and relaxed" is not a brand.
Most businesses reach for words like that because it's hard to say what actually makes you different, and "fun" feels safe. It isn't. It describes a mood, and your competitors have the same mood. What I do instead is find the proof. The way you handle a client on a bad day, the thing you always do that nobody else bothers with, the reason your best customers came back. Those are the moments a brand is built from. Then we write from there, and every line has to pass one test: could someone else in your industry say this? If they could, it goes. It's slower than picking nice adjectives, but you end up with something that's true, and people can tell.