Thomas Weaver My Story in Graphic Design

My name is Thomas, I studied Graphic Design at South Essex College and this is my story.

My name is Thomas, I am 40 years old and I studied Graphic Design at South Essex College from 2000 until 2006, and this is my story.

I began my journey at South Essex College, or SEEC as it was known back then, studying for GNVQ in Art & Design, from September 2000 to June 2001. South Essex college GNVQ in Art & Design qualification gave me a much needed second chance to work towards a higher education degree, and still have a shot at building a career doing something I was passionate about.

After passing the GNVQ in 2001, I was able to join the BTEC National Diploma programme for Graphic Design, before finally progressing to the BA Graphic Design course, which I completed with a 2.2 in the summer of 2006.

Before college, I was a high school graduate with terrible grades, living in a small village in the deep, dark depths of rural Essex. My options at the time were to either continue a career as a farm labourer, or get an education and get out of the sticks.

I’ve spent the last 17 years working in a variety of design roles, all directly related to what I studied at South Essex college. My first role as a Junior Designer was at one of the many small, boutique branding and design agencies which were ten a penny in East London at that point in time. I continued in print-focused roles until the end of the decade, when the advent of smartphones and the ‘always on’ online culture, caused a shift in the industry. Suddenly printed media became less relevant, opportunities dried up, and all those small boutique agencies either pivoted to digital or were resigned to history.

I chose to ride the wave rather than swim against the tide, broadening my capabilities to include more digital design, user experience and frontend skills which helped to keep me gainfully employed, and set me on the path to my current role at Futurice.

For the last five years I’ve worked for Futurice UK, where I’m Design Director and practice lead for Product Design, which encompasses UX, UI, IXD, and Visual Design. Futurice is a digital consultancy that specialises in the design and development of digital products and services, across sectors such as automotive, gaming (video games), legal, health & wellbeing, manufacturing, eCommerce,and many more. Based out of Helsinki, and with offices across Germany, Sweden and the UK, Futurice has around 700 employees internationally.

The best part of my role is leading a team of product designers as their development manager. I’m responsible for mentoring each individual in the team, supporting them on their own personal journey of professional development, and helping them to grow and expand their capabilities as designers.

Alongside this the role of a Design Director means wearing a lot of different hats, with day-to-day work including anything from coaching and consulting our clients, overseeing and defining DesignOps, building Design Systems, supporting business development, leading project teams, managing staffing and commercials, thought leadership, to rolling up my sleeves and actually doing some hands-on design work.

I joined at a lower position and worked my way up to a design leadership position within the first 12 months eventually taking on the role of Design Director. My career has had two distinct chapters so far, with the first focused on graphic, print and digital design, culminating with a role as Head of Design at a digital advertising agency. The second chapter began when I decided to pursue a career in user experience and interface design, which required me to step down into a lower professional level while I mastered the new set of expertise which underpin my current position as a Design Director in digital products and services.

I chose to study at South Essex college as I had friends who studied their A Levels there, and spoke highly of it. Most of my peers went on to study for their degrees at other universities around the country, but I didn't have the means to follow suit, but the college offered me a chance to gain a degree that I wouldn't otherwise have had, and is something I'm hugely grateful for, looking back from where that degree has taken me.

My time at the college taught me the fundamentals of design, giving me the foundation needed to step into a professional role and immediately start to add value to the organisations that I joined.

I personally liked having the opportunity to focus on subjects that I was passionate about, with a huge degree of flexibility to choose how I studied. The lecturers who taught me were younger, more inspiring, and dare I say a lot cooler than any teachers I'd encountered in high school. These were people in whose footsteps I actually wanted to follow.

One of my most enduring memories is a second year course work review with a group of my tutors. After a lacklustre presentation from myself, John Chandler, who I believe still works at SEC, said to me "you know what Tom, you really **** me off, because you could be one of the best designers in this college, but you're too lazy."

This pep talk gave me the kick up the arse that I needed at the time, and has stayed with me over the years, reminding me not to let my ego get the best of me, and to keep striving to do better. At South Essex college I had some great tutors who knew how to motivate me, and some fantastic peers to support me.

I hope to continue to grow as a Design Leader, leveraging my experiences and skills to mentor the next generation of designers, whilst continuing to support cross-functional teams to deliver user centred products and services with the best possible customer experience.