Celebrating an island. Connecting its people.

The Isle of Wight had an image problem. Full of talent, creativity and possibility — but not being seen that way. Connected Wight set out to change that. A web portal celebrating businesses and people across nine carefully selected sectors: Create, Explore, Work, Play, Invest, Grow, Learn, Innovate and Respect. The vision — to show the Isle of Wight as a progressive jewel in the UK. The world's most eclectic island with the perfect relationship between life, work and community.

What I did

I held the vision and wore many hats; project coordinator, digital designer, and experience designer. From the outset I brought in local brand designers THUMP, who I knew would dare to break the mould and give the project fresh energy.

I mapped the website architecture, designed the wireframes and prototypes, and ran testing before we went into build. Nothing was precious. I kept us learning, evolving and iterating with every cycle.

Beyond the build, I coordinated social campaigns with content creators, set up email marketing, and worked with developers and SEO specialists to make sure the portal performed as well as it looked.

What changed

Working as part of the internal content and delivery team, I helped set the creative vision — bridging comms, editorial, and creative to build a unified campaign framework from the inside out.

This one came to life fast — but it felt like a proper process from start to finish. We got the brief, played with it, pushed it. Discovery, playback, iteration, build again. Every stage brought the right people in at the right moment. The energy was right even when the timing was hard — we'd just come through a restructure, and this was my first major piece of work moving from digital into brand and creative thinking.

We built something from the ground up that people talk about and want to be featured on. Over 60 stories published. Constant engagement. A portal that set a new bar for what the Isle of Wight could look like to the world. The whole was greater than the sum of its parts — a team that showed up with passion and energy, and made something we're all genuinely proud of.

The four founders of connectedwight.com are all experienced design company owners in their own right. With a passion for everything ‘Isle of Wight’ we had a vision and objectives to bring ‘All of the Island - All in one place’… Nick turned our vision into reality. Besides managing and building the content from designers, writers, photographers, videographers, he advised us on the future development of the portal.

We had the pleasure of collaborating with Nick on a recent project—our team focused on the brand and visuals, while Nick brought his expertise as a digital strategist. He laid a solid foundation by mapping out the site’s structure, user experience, and overall flow, which gave us the clarity and direction we needed to confidently implement the design.

Nick was an integral part of the team. He’s not only incredibly easy to work with, but also consistently brings a can-do attitude and a drive to find smart, effective solutions. No challenge ever felt too big—his optimistic mindset is always, “If others can do it, so can we.” He’s adaptable, proactive, and made our job significantly easier by keeping things moving and on track.

Nick brings real energy to every project—he’s organised, dependable and always forward-thinking. Most importantly, we share the same goal: to create the best possible work with the end user in mind. Working with Nick was an absolute pleasure, and we now actively look for opportunities to bring him into future projects. His presence is a breath of fresh air, and he genuinely elevates the final result.

—Thump Studio