Creative Director with 20 years in brand building
I'm Simon, a Creative Director and brand strategist based in Tampa, Florida. I specialize in building brand identities from the ground up and leading the creative teams that bring them to life across every channel.
My career started in Dublin, where I spent six years at Juvo, a design agency where I progressed from graphic designer to Senior Designer. I led full rebrands, wrote website copy, designed identity systems, and won a Spider Award for Best Web Design. That foundation taught me to think holistically. Design and messaging as one system, not two separate deliverables.
After relocating to Tampa, I joined Elite as Senior Graphic Designer, transforming 10+ wheel brands into distinct identities. That work led to my role as Creative Director at Designity, where I've spent the past three years leading cross-functional teams of 15+ creatives across multiple client engagements simultaneously.
What sets me apart: I write copy, direct video, and design, and I do all three at a level where each strengthens the others. That means the brand voice, the visual identity, and the campaign creative are always built in lockstep, not handed off between specialists who don't talk to each other.
I'm looking for an in-house Creative Director or Art Director role where I can go deep on a single brand, leading identity, creative strategy, and a team that cares about craft.
What I bring
Creative Leadership
- Creative Direction / Art Direction
- Brand Strategy & Positioning
- Team Leadership & Mentorship
- Stakeholder Presentations
- Creative Operations & QA
Brand & Design
- Visual Identity Systems
- Brand Guidelines
- Marketing Website Design
- Print & Packaging
- Social & Paid Creative
Content & Production
- Copywriting & Messaging
- Video Direction & Scripting
- Integrated Campaigns
- Project & Timeline Management
- Adobe Creative Suite, AI Tools
Recommendations
"Simon is the best of the best, full stop. I have seen Simon turn junior designers into award-winning creative powerhouses. I've seen him put difficult clients at ease. I have marveled at his ability to put struggling client budgets into high-profit margins through world-class marketing and design. Simon has the rare combination of high skill and low ego. He's much more interested in making his clients money than he is in gaining glory for himself."
"Simon has been an exceptional collaborator throughout our time working together. He is a great communicator and a highly skilled project manager. Simon is an insightful marketing strategist thinker with a creative approach that sets him apart. His expertise, communication skills, and creative thinking make him an asset to any team. We couldn't have done it without Simon."
"Simon consistently demonstrated a strong ability to lead creative projects end-to-end with high quality and professionalism. He is highly effective at bringing structure to ambiguity, aligning teams around a shared vision, and providing the clarity needed for effective execution. His thoughtful, solution-oriented communication style fostered strong trust with both clients and internal teams."
"Simon is easily one of the most creative, reliable, and talented professionals I've had the privilege of working with. Throughout our time together, I was consistently impressed by his ability to manage large-scale creative and design projects with precision, always meeting deadlines without compromising quality. His deep expertise in design and software makes him an invaluable asset to any organization."
"Simon is an incredibly organized, detail-oriented partner and an absolute pleasure to work with. My team at Right At School collaborated with him for nearly three years, during which we developed hundreds of marketing and creative deliverables together. He's very responsive, a great communicator, and always shows up with a positive attitude and a willingness to jump in and figure things out."
"Simon is the kind of Creative Director every designer hopes to work with. Not only is he an exceptional designer with a sharp eye, but he leads with clarity, trust, and purpose. He created an environment that pushed me to grow creatively and professionally, and I'm incredibly thankful for the opportunity to have learned from him."
"I had the pleasure of working with Simon in Juvo for 5-6 years. He was our lead designer and came up with some tremendous web design and graphic design pieces. Simon always pushed the boundaries in terms of visual design and UX, and even when the developers said they couldn't do it, Simon found creative workarounds to every problem."
"Simon was a key point of contact during the project management of our website while working with Juvo. His creativity, knowledge and project management skills really came in to play when we set the challenge of a complete redesign of our website ensuring that all 3 arms of our business were visibly linked and from a user perspective made sense and flowed naturally from recruitment offerings to outsourced solutions and finally coaching and psychometric profiling...all people related business areas. His insights and technical abilities were outstanding. We would highly recommend Simon."