With Begin Studio’s six year anniversary around the corner, I wanted to share everything about Begin Studio in a truthful and candid way, and take a bit of space to regroup. For my own reference mostly, but I’m sharing it publicly in case you were curious about my inner thoughts, wanted to find out more about what I do or wanted to create your own intention statements for your business. Think of this as my alternative to goal setting - a space for me to write out who I am, what I do and why I do it and follow that through for the year. To give you some context, it’s an interesting time for me and a good place to regroup. For a range of reasons…

If you are like me and are taking a bit of a slower start to 2026 or find yourself watching the snow outside while you wait for your first bookings - you can get a head start on your website maintenance and go forth into spring knowing that your website is still working for you and looking its best. This blog post focuses on the core areas of messaging, communicating your value, design, SEO and ensuring your site works to bring you clients. I wrote this blog post with Squarespace in mind, as it’s the platform I use and create for my own clients - but you can take these principles into Wordpress, Shopify, Wix and other providers.

It will hopefully come as no surprise to you that although I love my business, love my clients and the work I do, I still need to find motivation on a day to day basis. I believe that our brains are wired to go down the easy path so when I arrive at my desk and write out my daily to-do list, I often choose the tasks that are the easiest to fulfill and the work that I’m enjoying the most first. Then everything else needs a bit of a push.

Colour is a really satisfying part of the design process, but there’s a lot to consider when choosing your brand’s colour palette. Colour is usually the first thing a viewer notices about your brand so this means your colours need to be reflective of your business and communicate your values quickly. This blog talks about how to choose a colour palette for your business, My formula for choosing perfect, flexible colour palette and where to find inspiration.

• Putting your palette to the test

I’m so pleased to share that my design for The Horti House is being featured in the Designrush article “The Best Green Logo Designs”. The Horti House project has been so rewarding and this is just the cherry on top. We worked together on a modern and refined logo mark that combines the imagery of their eco-friendly greenhouses, plants and forward arrow to communicate the speed of their delivery. The brand was then paired with a rich set of colours that would compliment the green of the plants that they sell and be able to be used across all of their marketing materials and assets.

In part, this post will help me process this milestone and give me something to look back to on my next birthday - but I also hope that I can help you with your own businesses or help anyone that is looking to go Freelance. So, before I jump into my top lessons that I’ve learnt this year, I just wanted to say a quick thank you to every client who has trusted me with their business and continue to recommend me to their peers. I see you and I am so appreciative!

So what is artworking? Artworking is a hugely important part of the design process. When you artwork you take your design and perfect and finalise the design, outline to ensure that the design cannot be changed by accident and you take extra steps to ensure that designers who take a look at your work in the future can understand it…

The name comes from the manufacturing method ‘Batch Production’, where companies create similar products in batches in order to save time. Batch tasking works exactly the same. Choosing tasks that naturally go together and then dedicating a set time to them every week, similar to a school timetable…

My branding and logo design packages are a carefully designed three step process based on my experience as an agency designer.

I love this process as it allows structure and predictability, while also giving the client flexibility and the chance to really understand every step and how the brand will shape their business…

What are my thoughts on AI and design? There's been lots of buzz recently about new AI image generators, using ChatGPT for written content and platforms like Squarespace letting you use AI for website content. For me, AI is good fun. I'm really impressed with the designers who use it as a cool tool for creating illustrations and imagery. but can designers utilise AI in another way? and how should I be using AI as a designer?