An MS Office Geek…?

I’ll let you into a little secret. There are not that many designers/artworkers/production artists that can work in MicroSoft Office (Word, PowerPoint, etc.). Most people you speak to run away from that sort of thing. I only know of a few in the whole of the UK.

I’ve been lucky I guess; in that circumstances dictated – thanks to world events, and the need to get a job – that I learned to work in Office long before it became a client standard. I’d started learning how to use Word and PowerPoint in the mid 1990s when I didn’t realise I wanted to work in the graphic design industry (I’d done work experience at an agency in Halifax, back in the late 80s, but I then did a wide range of jobs until 1995 when I got on a BTEC National Diploma course in Graphic Design).

I learned to type and use Word to a basic level at one of those recruitment agencies that specialised in secretarial work and the like. Then, in late 2001 (after the events of 9/11), the owners of the Kall Kwik print shop I worked at thought it’d be better for them if they hired a freelancer to do my job (that backfired massively, due to their views on gender and sexuality… ah well… their loss). So what did I go and do? I learned something new. I went to a recruitment agency in town that had a training suite above the office and they fast-tracked me through all the Office applications (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Access) all to an advanced level. I then spent the next year or so working in IT for a major bank (that had bought a no-win/no-fee insurance company and I ended up being the IT manager helping them rebuild their software; sometimes based at the bank’s HQ in Belfast).

Anyway… I really got into using PowerPoint while working at the Red Stone design agency in London; creating decks for the likes of the Bank of England (see their annual report elsewhere), UK Trade & Industry and others. I’ve taken those skills into my regular work – building accurate templates, which can mirror any InDesign document (to the same level of accuracy). Also, the templates are built with fully-functional master pages and to the client’s brand colours and fonts, where possible.

Here is a snapshot of my work done, over the last few years. My particular favourite is the Irish Whiskey Experience for the Midleton Distillery in Ireland; as it contained full-blown video and animations which were used to show the distillation process (the spinning clock and fermentation tanks).