Introduction

For almost a decade, I’ve worked as a content writer, digital editor, and researcher within digital and learning departments in cultural, educational and charitable institutions in London. I’m now looking to build on the skills and expertise I’ve gained in those sectors, as well as the purview of projects. Working as a freelance content designer offers the opportunity to work on a range of possible projects. It also offers a level of flexibility that’s more suitable to my working style. 

Current projects

Serpentine

As a freelance content designer, I’m currently working on a project for the Serpentine
Gallery’s Homepage, About Us, What’s On and Visit Us pages. Working with their web
agency and their communications team, I’m reorganising, rationalising, and rewriting
these pages. Arts organisations tend to publish content that’s more descriptive and
expositional than it is useful. For instance, a lot of the Serpentine content is written at
PhD level. To address this issue, I’m making the sections straightforward and accessible
by re-writing, combining, and cutting content. I was hired for this role on the strength of
my work on similar projects with the same manager at Arts Emergency and South
London Gallery.

Royal Academy of Arts

In my current role, I’m responsible for the pillar’s landing pages, events pages, digital resources, and newsletters. In practice, this means that, alongside producing original video and social content, large print guides, sensory guides, digital interpretation for a range of audiences, and in gallery family interpretation, I also copyedit newsletters, web pages, and event pages for family, access, and schools programmes, the adult learning programme, and the collections team at 5 key release dates throughout the year. I frequently undertake adhoc copyediting for solus newsletters, webpages, and reports where necessary

Reflection

As my work at Serpentine, the RA, and the rest of my experience to date attests, I care deeply about improving access to the arts and literature. Alongside other skills like research, pedagogical knowledge, and writing, I’ve most frequently deployed my digital skills to improve people’s online access to research, up-to-date exhibition and booking information, and video content. However, my interests are broad and I’m very keen to extend my skillset into other sectors, including health and social care, education, housing, the natural world, and disability. Because freelancing would enable me to work with a range of partners, from government departments to charities and local councils to health insurers, working as a content designer would be a foothold into a much wider range of projects with a much wider scope. 

Previous projects

For a fuller list of previous projects, please look at my CV.

I first cut my teeth editing newsletters and web content at the Whitechapel Gallery and have since worked in roles that encompass copyediting, digital editing, content design and production, collections and exhibition interpretation, research, and writing.

Future Barnardo’s

Before I worked at the RA, I worked as part of Future Barnardo’s in the digital transformation team. I worked with colleagues to improve written content. I created a clear, plain English style guide and contributed resources for a plain english workshop for colleagues. I also wrote and disseminated information about structuring pieces, ensured adherence to our style guide (based on GDS’), and edited for grammar and clarity. For instance, I completed a full developmental edit, line edit, copy edit, and proofread of the Project Toolkit. The toolkit was a guide to planning, executing and reflecting on projects for colleagues and sector peers. This experience proves my ability to understand, organise, and translate complex information quickly and clearly. 

Digital freelancer

I’ve worked on two major website migration projects. In 2018, I worked as a freelancer at the South London Gallery. In that role, I worked with the communications team, archivist, education team, the gallery’s director and Cog web developers to edit (and where necessary, rewrite) pages for all past exhibitions, current exhibitions and events pages, as well as landing pages for the relevant programme strands. More recently, I undertook a similar project for Arts Emergency’s new website. In both roles, I instituted a project management system, collaborated on a living style guide, and worked to GDS content design principles.

Artangel

In my role at Artangel, I was responsible for website training, content management, and content production. In addition, I had ownership of all social media and all digital marketing. For Evan Roth’s project Red Lines, I commissioned six responses to the artwork, identified and built relationships with influencers, built the relevant exhibition and event pages, and designed and executed the social media strategy and reporting for the project all in a 3 day week. To create such a large campaign on such a tight budget and to such a compact timeline, I had to build and maintain excellent and lasting relationships with internal and external contributors and have a solid plan from which to work.

Working style

I take a very deadline and system-orientated approach to editorial project management. Prioritising good project management by making use of scheduling, internal communications, task management software, and analytics and reporting allows teams with a broad purview to deal with ad hoc requests, as well as assign and distribute tasks. This, in turn, allows the digital, print, and video output of any organisation to shine.

I enjoy and seek out learning opportunities at work. And, because of the scope of my previous roles, I’ve had the opportunity to work on a broad range of projects. In so doing, I’ve acquired a wide range of skills with a variety of digital tools, web technologies, and analytics platforms, including several CMS and CRM (Django, Drupal, WordPress, as well as bespoke platforms), press portals like Gorkana and Cision, programmes like Photoshop, audacity, and InDesign, as well as an in-depth understanding of Google analytics and HotJar.

Outside of work

Outside of digital work, I’m a 3 of Cups press founding editor and have written for the publications Frieze, Open City Docs, Art Quarterly, RA, and Pylot, and the anthology STIM. In 2020-2022, I was the Bradley de Glehn English Scholar on RHUL’s Creative Writing MA, which I graduated with distinction. I run a community garden and allotment in my local estate in south east london.