About
You are considering paying a stranger a fixed price to build something you need. The demos show what I can make. This page is the rest of it — how I got here, the two projects that taught me the most by going wrong, and the things I am not good at.
How I got here
2013 – 2019
Brochures, exhibition stands, retail displays, brand campaigns. Unglamorous, and it taught me something I have never stopped using: a layout nobody can produce is not a design. In print the constraint is a fold line and a colour profile. On the web it is a render budget and whoever has to implement it. Same lesson, different units.
2019 – 2024
High-volume consumer platforms, where one extra tap was a number somebody measured on Monday morning. I learned interface density there, and I learned exactly how the persuasive patterns work, because I built them. That is also why I left — and why I will not build them for you. More on that below.
2024 – now
A forex broker, then a global payments group, then a consultancy where I own brand, web and system design and coordinate designers across several countries. Trade blotters, risk views, onboarding flows, payment gateways. Dense data where being wrong is expensive, which is the work I actually want.
What went wrong
Both of these were somebody else’s fault when they happened. Neither of them is, on reflection — and the rules I work by now came out of them, which is why they are worth the space.
A project died of revisions. Every review produced changes; every change reopened something already agreed. Nobody was being unreasonable — the client was still working out what the product was. It went round long enough to miss its window, and then it was quietly dropped.
What it actually was
For a long time I filed this under “the client kept changing their mind.” That is not the lesson. Clients are always still deciding; that is normal and it is not going to stop. The failure was mine: I had no mechanism that distinguished a correction from a new requirement. I absorbed both as work, so scope could grow without anyone ever having to make a decision about it.
So now
Every engagement starts with a written scope. Anything that moves the date or the price gets an amendment in writing before I start it. That rule is not a preference — it is what one dead project cost me.
A company wanted a few extra pages on an existing site. I took it, assuming there was a foundation underneath. There was not: no design system, no source files kept, no consistency between the pages already live. Every page I added made the whole thing slightly more incoherent.
What it actually was
I blamed the person who built it first. But I was the one who quoted for extension work without checking that there was anything to extend. You cannot build on a foundation that does not exist, and I agreed to try.
So now
I check for the foundation before quoting. If it is not there, the first deliverable is the foundation, not the pages — which is why the design system engagement includes migrating one of your real products onto it. A system nothing runs on is a set of guesses.
What I am not good at
Every freelancer’s site says they are a great communicator who cares deeply about detail. Here is the other half.
My written English is strong. Live, in a fast meeting with four people talking over each other, I am slower than I would like — and I would rather you heard that from me than found out on a call. It is why this process starts in writing: the scope, the price and the reasoning exist on paper before we ever speak. If your team works mostly in meetings, I am probably the wrong hire.
I can direct both and I know what good looks like, but I do not model in 3D or edit video to a professional standard. If a build needs either, it comes from you or from someone you bring in. I will tell you that at quoting time, not halfway through.
I cannot show you a conversion lift, because none of the places I worked measured one. I asked, more than once, and it went nowhere. I would rather say that plainly than reverse-engineer a statistic. It is also a large part of why I now want to work with teams that do measure.
I take one or two projects at a time. If I am ill for a week, your project is a week late — there is nobody to hand it to. That is a real risk and I am not going to dress it up. In twelve years my own circumstances have delayed a project two or three times: a low rate, not a zero one, and I would rather hand you the rate than a promise. The more useful question is the next one: if I disappear halfway, what do you actually hold? A deployed, running repository, a design system your own engineers can pick up, and a written record of why each decision went the way it did. Those accumulate from week one rather than arriving in the last week, so an interruption in week two leaves you everything up to week two — complete, and usable by someone else. You would also hear about it the day it happened, not when the deadline arrived.
What I turn down
I spent four and a half years on high-volume consumer platforms where the entire craft was getting one more tap out of somebody. I was good at it. I left on my own initiative, for fintech, and that move cost me something at the time.
So when the ask is to make a confirmation step a little smoother, or fold the fee disclosure one level deeper, or add a streak counter to something involving real money — the answer is no. Not on principle. Because I have built those things and I know what they turn into in two years.
Everything else is on the table. I will also say no to work I am not the right person for, which happens more often than you would expect, and I usually know who is.
How the time zone actually works
I am in Kuala Lumpur. My late afternoon and evening — roughly 4pm to 9pm my time — is the European morning, and that is a genuine overlap, not a theoretical one. I have run projects with teams in the UK, Singapore and China on exactly that window: the decisions that need a live conversation go there, and everything else goes in writing.
For US teams the overlap is thin and I am not going to pretend otherwise. It can work, but only if you are comfortable with a written cadence and a clickable build every couple of days rather than a daily standup.
Most weeks I am in zero meetings. That is deliberate, not avoidance: a written update can be read by whoever missed it, forwarded to whoever signs off, and referred back to in week four when someone remembers the decision differently.
People I have worked with
“He actively shares his knowledge with the team, helping to uplift the overall capability of our internal members.”
Kathy Yeo
Former Design Lead
Managed me directly
“Canon works well across teams and cultures, communicates clearly, and always strives to deliver work that aligns both with user needs and business goals.”
Jamie Chew
Creative — Brand Design, Art Direction, UI/UX
Senior to me, worked alongside
“His working style is structured, detail-oriented, and adaptable, which makes him a reliable team member in a fast-paced working environment.”
Sook Poo Cheng
IT Project Manager
Senior to me, worked closely
These are LinkedIn recommendations from colleagues and managers, not client testimonials — I have not taken on enough freelance clients to have those yet, and I would rather show you real ones from the wrong category than invent the right one.
Still here?
Then you have read the unflattering half, which means we would probably work well together. Send me a brief — the button fills in the questions.