Samples of work

WEBSITES
From October 2009 to February 2011, for the Fatherhood Institute, I worked on two sites:

  • For their main site at www.fatherhoodinstitute.org, I managed the migration from old site to new, designed the structure of the new site, and helped build and integrate a new database, and wrote, edited and designed new pages in WordPress;
  • For Dads Included, an online community for sharing expertise in father-inclusive practice, I project-managed the site build; wrote some functional specs; worked with coders to select and improve the functionality; organised domains and forwarding; rewrote all the functional copy; moderated the site, and updated the back end in Joomla.

From 1999 to 2009 I worked for MRM, a digital agency in London. The web being what it is, most of those sites have since been updated, but they included George Wimpey, Birds Eye, NatWest, Flora Pro.Activ, Intel, Roche Healthcare, Microsoft and Clearasil, and a huge website called Respect, about legislation on anti-social behaviour, for the Home Office.

In my spare time, I’ve built some sites for friends:

  • For Sawston Scene, the village magazine I edit and design, I designed a logo and a website and wrote all the copy, then built it in iWeb, adding forms from MailChimp for an automated mailing list. I have since rebuilt the site in WordPress.
  • For Robert Rice, a friend who’s a singer, I helped him work out what he wanted to say, designed the navigation, found a photographer for him, and built the site in iWeb.
  • For I Fagiolini, a fantastic singing group, I worked with the director to design an architecture; found a CMS, edited all the copy, and commissioned a designer to do the front end and a coder to do the integration with WordPress.

MAILING LISTS
Recently I’ve helped design and migrate a database and integrate it with a website (and a Facebook page), then designed email campaigns in MailChimp – examples here and here. I’ve done some for my own use too – integrating the sign-up form into my website here and sending out emails.

INFORMATION DESIGN
Financial services are a speciality of mine, and I’ve worked on documents for mortgages (Standard Life Bank’s Freestyle) and pensions too – anything complicated that needs to be explained simply would be right up my street.

Here’s an example of an ISA application form I rewrote and redesigned, before and after (details of the bank it was done for have been erased).

WRITING
You’ll find samples of my writing on a variety of topics at my blog, with ruminations on usability, grammatical pedantry, books I’ve read, operas and plays I’ve seen, random cultural and parenting issues, and day-to-day weirdness (what product is marketed with the slogan ‘the gesture of love you can trust’? You will NEVER guess…) I’ve put links above to a few sample pages. Sadly, while I’ve been working for the Fatherhood Institute the blog has got moribund, but that may change.

For three years, I worked as a volunteer on Cambridge’s National Childbirth Trust quarterly magazine, designing it and writing articles. Here are some samples in PDF format:

You’ll also find samples of my writing on pages 3, 4, 9 and 12 of the most recent Sawston Scene.

EDITING
Most of the work here involves editing in some form. But I’ve also worked on consumer and trade magazines as a sub-editor and production editor: Home and Studio Recording, Keyboard Review, Sound on Sound, Internet magazine, and several telecomms titles at Emap.

Here’s an example of the village magazine I’ve been the editor of since June last year. I decided on a house style and tone of voice, and do all the editing myself.

DESIGN
I’m also using Sawston Scene as a design example. I did the original design and set up style sheets in Quark XPress, and do all the layout and print production. It’s unpaid work, but I like to keep my hand in – and I’ve been using Quark for more than a decade (ouch!)

I was also the designer for three years (as a volunteer) on Cambridge’s National Childbirth Trust magazine, 52 pages published in black only every three months. I really enjoy finding ways to make low-budget publications look jazzy; I’m not much of a graphic designer: my speciality is typography. (Ask me about superscripted ordinals!)

NEED TO KNOW MORE?
I’ll be continuing to add samples of work covering different areas so you can get an idea of what I could do for you, but if in doubt please contact me: becklaxton@gmail.com or 07974 935 957.

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