My journey from the sole designer with a blank slate, to leader of a skilled team super-charging every corner of the business. I defined the look of countless products and campaigns, content portals, website relaunches, comprehensive rebrands, and built a highly versatile team of designers.
*Please note that as I only left Oxford Global as recently as September 2026, this post is an unfinished work in progress as I gather my thoughts.*
Some highlights:
- Starting from next-to-nothing, I built a comprehensive visual branding worthy of standing against our biggest competitors, communicated across countless brochures, websites, marketing assets and on-site event materials.
- My technical skillset was instrumental in the implementation of customer portals, content libraries, eCommerce, membership platforms, and the streamlining of many lengthy workflows. This saved countless hours, and brought many expensive projects in-house.
- I became an experienced manager, with juniors, seniors, and contractors across varying disciplines reporting to me. This included generalists, specialist website and motion designers, web developers, videographers, as well as working with freelancers and external agencies.
- I won multiple awards for embodying company values, and championing ‘Wellness Meetings’ for my staff.
Below is fuller account of my journey…
2017 – 2018: Introduction of Graphic Design
As Oxford Global Marketing’s first graphic designer, I was charged with building a visual brand for a business that been until that point entirely reliant on Microsoft Office apps, defining the look of and creating the replacement all their materials (digital and print).
- [brochures, newsletters, floorplans which though dated I am still proud of]
- As a result of me enabling ‘content marketing’, the company launched an ‘Editorial’ arm [arrival of Content Hub]
2019: Web Design & Managerial Responsibility
In Summer 2019 I collaborated with a contractor web developer to replace the long-standing company website with a modern, responsive design using WordPress plugin ‘Elementor’, eventually bringing full creative design freedom in-house.
In the Autumn I took on managerial responsibilities as ‘Lead Designer’, as the team expanded to include a second graphic designer. In the Winter I won the annual award for the staff member most embodying the four company values: Quality / Innovation / Knowledge / Collaboration.
2020 – 2021: Rise of Online Events
Throughout 2020 I played a central role in the company’s pandemic pivot to virtual events, including customisation of 3rd party virtual events and networking platforms, overhauling huge chunks of collateral to reflect our new business model, and providing constant support for the sudden increased focus on digital output.
Online Events had been profitable, so as the pandemic closed and in-person returned, many online events stayed, and smaller ones introduced. Where we had 16 events annually pre-pandemic, we now had 35+ (most of which included multiple sub-events), so I expanded the team to three to cope with demand.
2022: Arrival of Brands & Membership
- JetEngine / Content Portals
- Membership (Memberpress)
- [we expanded to four in order to meet the volume, content portals and membership]
2023: I learned HubL templating language, which I used to build advanced functionality, such as personalised customer portals, complex modules utilising custom CRM objects, such as event websites, and content libraries with dynamic gating rules. You can read more about this in ‘Automations and Data-Powered Design‘.
- [I led rebrands at the corporate level, used what I had learned to streamline]
- WooCommerce
- Plus Pass
2024:
- consolidation of 8 disparate brands into 3 impactful ones.
2025:
- LSX
2026
- redundancies
- handover