Hello! I’m James, founder & Creative Director at Punk Works.

Previously, Head of Brand Design at Google,
Global Creative Director at Pinterest & Principal at DesignStudio.

Thinking ➜ Rogue School
Making ➜ Bland Land
Growing ➜ First Things Club

My work gets hyphenated with:
Brand — Campaign — Digital — Awards — Art — Music — Writing — Mentoring — Talking — Press — Advisor
An experimental Small Language Model (SML) I'm playing with to understand the (much) bigger ones.
At Pinterest I’ve helped build the brand that gives the platform credibility and consistency and lead the team building tools to help key audiences understand and adore us.

Those audiences include people that use Pinterest, people that create content & businesses that advertise.
2004 — 2008
Graphic Designer @ Cog Design
Helping friends at Print Club in their first shop (and my first attempt at publicity).
2008 — 2009
Senior Designer @ Emak Mafu
The financial crises made me grateful for vocational skills & humbled to get noticed.
2009 — 2012
Founder @ Cure Studio
Co-Founder @ HiggonsonHurst
Founder @ The Type Foundry
We had fun putting on exhibitions & helping build culture.
2012 — 2014
Head of Digital @ Figtree
Digital Director @ Prophet
Design Director @ Wednesday
Released two EPs described as discordant, noise and ‘interesting’.

Not for weddings & have not (I hope) been played at a funeral.

Listen here.
2014 — 2019
CD → ECD → Principal @ DesignStudio
Moved from London to  San Francisco!
Set-up First Things Club which hosts global design folk who meet every 3 months to help each other do good with good design.
2019 — 2022
Global Creative Director, Pinterest
I was asked to write a book, fast forward years (and a run-in with mortality) & I asked myself — why hadn't I written that book?

So I did.

Rogue School
2020 — Present
Board member@ Bluetack Collective
Advisor @ Hoo Koo E Koo
Advisor @ Re-Origin
I'm a strong advocate (and practitioner) of Design Thinking to give brands unfair advantages. Sometimes I flex the Design as Author muscle, so created my own playground.

Bland Land
2022 — 2023
Head of Brand Design @ Google
Creative boom were kind enough let me drone on.

Read it here
2023
Launched Punk Works
Etc
Me at work
Typeform
Deliveroo
Treatwell
Drivy
Years ago I was asked to write a book.

Recently I asked myself why I hadn't written that book.

So I did.

Rogue School.
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