Steven Dawson Designs

What does Steven Dawson Designs offer..?

I've been working within the web industries since 1999. Along the way I have accrued vast experience in an array of projects, from very large multi-page, multi-sectioned websites with thousands of daily page impressions, to niche, stylised web shops for a select, international audience. My years and breadth of experience, alongside an expert knowledge of the internet, means I aim to have a calm, considered approach on new projects.

Whilst I'm happy to work in any areas, there are three areas worth mentioning in greater detail.

I've worked in or with newspapers since my first job leaving college in 1997. Even before that I've always known a lot about newspapers as my Father and Grandfather spent their lives in the business.

I started out on the editorial floor of the Daily Mail, laying out pages for the edition, and before moving on I occasionaly took charge of the art desk for whole editions. I left to join their new media think tank, where we were investigating the possibilities for putting the papers online (this was back in 1999). This department was merged into the Associated Newspapers new media off-shoot company Associated New Media. At ANM we built, managed and launched the entire Associated Newspapers editorial portfolio - femail.co.uk, dailymail.co.uk, thisislondon.co.uk (aka the Evening Standard), thisismoney.co.uk and thisistravel.co.uk. All of these sites were designed and built to strict, high-level editorial requirements, which were governed by the editorial executives at Associated Newspapers. So the standards bar was set very high.

In 2004 I left Associated and went freelance.

At the end of 2007 I started working with Newsquest on redeveloping their local newspaper brands. Newsquest own 300+ local news titles, 150+ of which have websites. As this was the first major overhaul of their websites for 6 years, I had to juggle the wants and needs of all departments, editorial, commercial, community and the back-end team.

The project started in November '07 and we relaunched the first paper - the Hereford Times - in April 08.

Agencies, especially good ones, generally grab the best jobs and the biggest clients. Then they will often look into the office and see they could use an extra pair of hands/eyes/ears. Fortunately for myself I've worked in a number of great agencies on some very exciting projects and as a great compliment I've been offered full time employment with them too... but I've decided to keep making life hard for myself and remain independent.

Here are some agencies I have a good relationship with:

EHS Brann - a major London Ad Agency, owned by Euro RSCG Worldwide. With EHS Brann I worked on three international brands as a coder and code adviser. On one of those projects, I ended up managing the whole site build, the CMS development and the extra freelancers needed.
Picture - a fabulous up-and-coming agency, who've managed to grab themselves a bunch of big name clients - BBC, Virgin, Channel 4, MSN to name a few. Picture were great to work with as their approach to websites was generally pretty outlandish and bold. I came into Picture as a front-end developer, who could be handy with a bit of design, and that's exactly what I gave them. I worked with them on sites for BBC Climate Change, BBC iPlayer, ONETrueSaxon, Virgin and Truphone.
Harlequin Solutions - since establishing in 1989 have become a main player in designing and building sites for large organisations. They specialise in Government, Local Authorities, NHS, Education, Not for Profit and Corporate clients. I've been used by Harlequin Solutions on many different occasions to bring a high level of front-end coding skills which they require for their sites.

If you are a small or independent business then your design and online needs will be completely specific to you. You may be a record label looking to provide maximum connection with your users, or a restaurant wanting to give an impression of your special atmosphere online. What you'll want from any consultant is the ability to comfortably engage with them, feel that they are hearing your individual needs and the trust that they are going to go away and come up with a desirable, workable solution.

I have worked with people from all walks of life and all walks of business. I believe I can just as equally listen to and engage with a high achieving, self driven business person, as with a 20 year nocturnal music producer. Through my history of working with various operations of differing sizes I've gained the experience of working with people on all levels of status and expertise.

I've learnt that the best way to deliver my skills is basically to listen, to understand, and then to use my knowledge and expertise to provide the answers they need.