About

I’m a product designer from the UK with over 5 years of experience.

I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some fantastic clients, including Bonfire, Sonos, Technicolor, The Royal Household, NVIDIA, NHS, and Cineworld.

In my spare time, I enjoy hiking up the fells here in the Lake District, navigating the lakes on my Paddleboard, and noodling on my guitar. A more recent hobby of mine is painting the popular Warhammer miniature figurines.

My favourite hobby, however, has got to be photography. You can follow me over on my photography Instagram account to view some of the pictures. If you’d like to purchase any of them as a print, please get in touch and we can arrange it.

Martin Garnett sat in a bright orange jacket and a bobble-hat. — This is me, sitting outside the Patterdale Hotel in front of Place Fell, Lake District

Skills

Every day brings new challenges. The following skills and software help me overcome these.

General Skills

My primary skills revolve around user interface design (UI) and user experience design (UX).

Specializing in product design, I design interfaces (websites, dashboards, emails, etc.) that help the user achieve their goal. Often backed up with data; either from user tests or the system database itself.

I’ve also created several logos and brand identities for companies, including their websites and other collateral during my career.

In addition to design, I like to dabble in code. I am competent with HTML & CSS, with a good understanding of JavaSript including a little of the React framework.

Software of choice

I’m a huge Figma fan. From quick wireframes, to design systems & full high-fidelity designs, Figma is my go-to with anything design related.

I also have experience in the Adobe Creative Cloud software but find myself using it less and less as Figma grows to be more powerful. Photoshop and Illustrator are the main programs I use here, but I also have experience in After Effects, Premier Pro, Lightroom, and InDesign.

When it comes to coding, (which is mainly for personal sake), I use VS Code and GitHub.

Timeline

Drag the timeline to see where I've worked...

Product Designer (Contract) at

Bonfire

Apr, 2021 - Present

Currently, I’m working with the amazing people at Bonfire, helping them on the Product Team. Rolling out new features, improving the design system, and leading accessibility efforts are just a few projects I’m working on right now. Using data-driven research, we’re improving the product for customers as well as the internal team.

Product Designer at

Academy Point

Jun, 2018 - Mar, 2021

As the lead designer at Academy Point, I designed everything for the company, as well as our client projects. I’ve developed a brand identity for Academy Point and created a design system for the LMS to quickly create consistent, accurate, designs.

I also worked closely with our clients to improve the user experience within our LMS, introduced new features, and produced custom layouts that matched our client’s branding and business needs.

Digital Designer at

Ogilvy

Apr, 2018 - Jun, 2018

Within the digital design team at Ogilvy, I worked primarily on a couple of projects for Oracle, designing a new format for their digital e-books and also a sales tool for Oracle’s B2B team. Both of these projects involved extensive prototyping to help explain complex user journeys and demonstrate how animation could be used to add visual interest and delight.

Additionally, I also worked on a couple of presentation designs, and email templates for Mastercard and Vodafone.

Elearning Designer at

The Creative Engine

Feb, 2017 - Apr, 2018

I worked on a broad range of projects at The Creative Engine for some fantastic clients; including e-learning design for Sonos, Furniture Village and Inghams (Hotelplan), as well as in-store retail demos for Weber, Nvidia and Darty.

Working with such fantastic clients on these projects, I got a lot of exposure to working with strong brand guidelines, as well as working to a higher expected level of quality.

Media Developer at

The Moment

Oct, 2015 - Jan, 2017

Initially hired as a 3D artist, my skills in design were sought after and I made a transition into an e-learning designer. Here I worked predominantly with maritime clients such as Carnival UK, Babcock, and CSMART, creating engaging training content for their staff.

Our team was predominantly computer game art graduates or film & animation graduates, so we really pushed the limits on interactivity and ideas, making use of 3D, VR, and immersive storytelling.

Product Designer (Director) at

Atom Cake

Apr, 2015 - Present

Atom Cake Ltd. is my own side-hustle. I initially created it to help small businesses get up and running with their own website, branding, and other marketing material. But now, it’s my full-time job, working on design systems, product design, and the occasional eLearning module.

It’s taught me a lot about client relationships and about running a business, and I hope that one day I can grow it even further.