Suzanne Hutson
Design Research Lead
I spent one-year providing research insights and expertise for Jo and her team at Barclays, and it was amazing working with her, a real pleasure! Although I was working for an external agency, she made me feel like we were partners: welcoming my ideas, involving me in decision making. So many qualities, it’s hard to know where to start. Here are some of the things which stood out for me:
Jo is a true leader: she inspires and nurtures others into giving of their best. Yet the brand of leadership she provides – calm, unruffled, collaborative – makes her 100% approachable and likeable.
She is brilliant with stakeholders – diplomatic and persuasive, with that rare ability to turn situations of conflict into positive outcomes.
She is pragmatic: always looking for solutions, sidestepping barriers.
She is forward-thinking and looks at the bigger picture and long term outcomes, rather than fire-fighting and getting bogged down in trivia.
Most importantly for me, Jo is simply a really lovely colleague to be around. She is chilled, friendly and funny. I would relish the opportunity of working with her again at some point in the future!
Bryony Hall
Creative Director
I consider myself very lucky to have worked in Jo's team. As a manager she has a calm, fair and forthright manner which gave us (her team) the confidence to truely strive creatively and solve all manner of problems. Her creative direction has shaped us, as a team, into a much more diligent, skilful and tasteful group of UX designers. I always felt that I could get her support and guidance on anything. This is due to her talent of empathy and how quickly and easily she builds trust with others around her. She truely cares about her team and works tirelessly to make sure our path to designing a great UX is clear. I would jump at the chance to work with her again.
Ed White
Content Strategist
Jo's a splendid egg. We worked together extensively on the BBC account project, which was quite the untamed beast. Thankfully, Jo's systematic approach and clear-headed design leadership meant we were able to bring this brute of a product under control and create a service that feels straightforward and beneficial to the user. I'd work with her again in a heartbeat.
Lani Shamash
Website Transformation Project Manager
Jo has been an absolute pleasure to work with and a central member of the Website Transformation project at Southbank Centre.
She's a fantastic, user-orientated digital designer with brilliant inter-personal and communication skills; she confidently leads wireframing sessions and presents designs and prototypes to senior stakeholders, explaining how design decisions were made and the user needs whilst avoiding any alienating jargon.
She has also been an informal agile coach for the team, ensuring we uphold agile processes as ScrumMaster, a role in which her exceptional organisational skills were on full show. Her ability to find practical solutions to complex problems enabled her to overcome the tensions around integrating design and UX in sprint, establishing pragmatic workflow processes which mean't that the technical team always had development-ready designs to work from as and when they were needed.
Jo would be a massive asset to any project or team. I really hope I have the chance to work with her again in the future.
Paul Vulpiani
Head of Digital Solutions
Few designers manage to create digital products which combine a fantastic design aesthetic with an intuitive understanding of user needs, Jo does exactly this.
I managed Jo as part of the digital function at Southbank Centre and worked on a number of successful projects with her. Jo was an integral part of the team which built the new Southbank Centre website. During the later stages of the project Jo became Scrum Master for the team, a role she accomplished incredibly quickly. Jo built up her own design and UX team which instantly became a real asset to Southbank Centre.
I was particularly impressed by Jo’s ability to adapt to rapidly to changing internal circumstances whist still keeping a relentless focus on user needs. Her ability to handle even the toughest stakeholders effortlessly and with a sense of perspective was a real asset to me.
Jo is constant thinker, she is always keen to revisit her design practice and how it could work better within Scrum framework. Jo would be a fantastic asset to any digital team or project, large or small. Given the opportunity I would work again with Jo in an instant.
Charlie Arnott
Sys Admin
Jo's contribution to the team as a digital-first designer has been invaluable.
Working with Jo has been an absolute pleasure. Her commitment to the agile process, usability and user-testing has helped the team build beautiful and functional products. Undaunted by the technical jargon Jo has also acted as scrum master with great results.
I sincerely hope we get to work together in the future.
Joe Heaney
Web Content Manager
Jo is great. It's that simple! She's clear and direct, which makes her very easy to work with. She knows how to lead with confidence - and can hold her own when it comes to difficult discussions with stakeholders. But she is also very much a team player - I very much enjoyed working as her scrum colleague during Southbank Centre's website transformation project. She has a huge amount of knowledge about digital design and UX (I learnt a lot from her). And a methodical, strategic brain. There is always a logic behind her design approach.
Richard North
Marketing Manager
I worked with Jo at Southbank Centre on developing the identity for the Imagine Children's Festival. It was great working with Jo on the project as she is a brilliant designer, great to work with, patient and most importantly believes passionately in the integrity of an idea.
All the way through the project Jo ensured that the original design idea stayed at the heart of the campaign and although there were changes along the way, these never compromised the design output. As well as this Jo also ensured that the design was able to work digitally and in physical spaces across Southbank Centre so that the experience for audiences was consistent.
Ultimately the campaign was a success and it's a testament to Jo that the same visual identity is still live now and has been used for the last three years and continues to be developed.
Hollie Lubbock
Senior Design Lead
Jo embodies both design aesthetic and pragmatism, achieving great design solutions within an agile framework (never an easy thing to achieve). Her experience within the team was incredibly valuable to create an excellent collaborative environment.
Working with her across UI and UX, she has the knowledge of what users want to create great experiences. It was truly a pleasure to work on the project (Southbank Centre's new website) with her.
Lucy Land
Founder and Editor
The brief was to design the brand and website from scratch. Jo not only created a sleek brand which really captured the essence of what the website stood for, but exceeded my expectations in every way.
Jo is very creative, approachable and professional. She is also extremely patient, thorough and meticulous; she gave me plenty of advice and support throughout the website’s development and continues to do so.
The design, navigation and backend usability are all user-friendly and it is because of Jo’s work that we have feedback on how user-friendly and amazing the website looks from the likes of Richard Branson, make-up artist Jemma Kidd and jeweller Zara Simon
James Reeve
Softworld Marketing Manager
Jo has worked on four exhibition marketing campaigns for me and I’ve been consistently impressed with the efficiency, quality and creativity of her output.
Jo is very easy to work with and arrived quickly at a design which met the brief to a high standard.
Jo’s work is top notch and she delivers well thought out, eye catching designs. I wouldn’t hesitate to call on her for future campaigns.
Tracey Ridgewell
Awards and Annual Publishing Manager
I was delighted that Jo was available to work with me on the 600 page D&AD Annual, a major project requiring consistency and commitment.
Jo was instrumental in turning around a large volume of pages each day over her two month period with us.
Personality wise, Jo fitted in beautifully with the rest of the D&AD Awards team with her cheery and upbeat nature. Having worked with Jo previously, I was very pleased that I got her on board for the D&AD Annual and wouldn’t hesitate to do so in future.
Gemma Mitchell
Festival Director
Jo and I first worked together collaborating on events for YARNfest back in 2011.
Since then, she has been my go-to designer for all print requirements, supporting us with a very successful rebrand of the Underwire Festival for the 2011 edition. Her work is impecable, taking a brief accurately but moving beyond specifications with flair always creating something exceptional rather than expected. I anticipate each draft of work from Jo with excitement! I hope we will have a long-standing relationship across all my cinema and digital projects.
Stella Sookun
Account Manager
From our rather sketchy first brief, Jo turned out strong ideas and detailed rationales for colour and typefaces quickly and consistently in order to position the creative work in the best way.
She was always on hand to talk through the key objectives and creative pathways presented. Jo was very professional at tracking amends and offering creative solutions once a review had taken place and her quirky and detailed approach to thinking is matched with a gracious and genuine care to “get it right”.
Feeding back and covering all bases before I asked the questions was an added bonus. I wouldn’t hesitate to work with Jo again, as she is adaptable and committed, and I look forward to getting her on board to lead projects again in the future.
Rachel Montgomery
Engagement Manager
Jo worked with us on two products for very different audiences and gave us solutions that were equally effective.
Jo has all the best qualities of a designer: creativity, flexibility, high standards and excellent communication skills. She also has great patience with people changing their minds!
Not content with just getting the job done, Jo thinks hard about design and works on solutions until she is satisfied with it. I definitely recommend her.
Lesley McCave
Editor
I worked with Josephine for a couple of years at Time Out in London.
During that period she proved to be an incredibly creative individual, always brimming with ideas but eager to take on board suggestions from editors, too.
Although I did not manage Josephine directly, it was obvious to me that she was incredibly patient with junior members of her team, thanks to her superior communication skills.
All in all, Jo was a delight to work with.