About me
I am a Welshman living in California. Married to an amazing elementary teacher and father to 2 boys. I was born in Wales, United Kingdom and grew up in the great eras of the 70's and 80's. Growing up in rural Wales, led me to building dens, tree houses, bows and arrows and anything else I could think of using materials that I could find in my father’s workshop.
The discovery of a love for making things, led me to spend countless hours in the metal and woodwork rooms at school. Concentrating on my strengths in Design Craft and Technology, my passion for designing and making things led me to Art College to study 3 Dimensional Design. Whilst there I discovered my skills for designing and making lighting, products, furniture and pieces of jewelry. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1989.
After leaving college, I spent a number of years doing various jobs including Carpentry and Timber framed house construction. Through a friend, I was introduced to the owner of Benchmark Model making, a small but very reputable company within the Design Industry in the United Kingdom. I joined the company where I developed my core skills as a model maker, and within a few years I had established myself as an expert model maker producing work for companies such as Sony, Nokia, Samsung, Nortel, and for Design firms like IDEO, Fitch, Seymour Powell and Tangerine.
In 2001, I moved to Los Angeles and joined Nokia Design Studios that had just constructed a world class Prototype Studio. It was here I was able to expand my skills and started to use CAD/CAM software and CNC machines to produce prototypes. Collaborating with Designers, Materials and Trends and Graphic Design groups, I was able to experiment and design with many different materials, explore new processes and manufacturing techniques and apply them to concepts and design that were made to inspire the designers. I was able to design and make my own design concepts and create form and function studies that helped develop new ways of interacting with design and user interface. Over the 15 years I spent at Nokia, I also had the fortune of working at Nokia Advanced Design Team and Nokia’s HERE group, Everyday Adventures.
2015 saw a move to iamplus in Los Angeles, a tech firm founded by musician will.i.am. As a newly formed design team, we designed products and accessories focusing on “wearable tech”. One of the successful products was BUTTONS headphones, which was developed into it’s own company. Fusing fashion and technology, the focus was high end product design, with premium materials and finishes. Developing color variants with various finishes and materials, I worked closely with our partners in China, vendors and Leadership team. It was during this time that I was tasked with designing several packaging solutions for iamplus and BUTTONS products. With a newly formed Prototype Lab, I was able to produce prototypes and concepts of many products, but also many packaging concepts.
When Covid broke out in 2020, will.i.am saw that there was a need for a mask that could be worn and still stay connected with people and your music. XUPERMASK was born and as a new company, we switched gears and focused on this product. Designed by Jose Fernandez of Ironhead Studios, renowned Hollywood icon of costume design and innovation, the XUPERMASK team brought the mask to market working alongside our vendors in China and with the partnership of Honeywell. XUPERMASKED was launched in April 2021.
Outside of my work I like to enjoy the outdoors and spend time with my family traveling and enjoying the local beaches. As a passionate cyclist I spend many hours in the saddle in the local mountains both on and off road. My creativity does not end at work, as I like to do personal projects and create things at home and for people who ask me to do so.