January 1998 to November 1999

Returning to Siegel & Gale as a freelance information designer, I did several complex projects:

• rewrote all the letters that Freemans catalogue sends out to its customers, including demands for outstanding payments;
• wrote, in collaboration with its legal team, all the documentation for Standard Life Bank’s Freestyle mortgage, one of the first offset mortgages, translating legal gobbledegook into plain English.

Also did sales work, both cold-calling leads and giving new business presentations.

Skills: developed my knowledge of financial services, found out how to collaborate with experts.

Emap
Freelance production editor for Internet magazine and then a freelance sub-editor and production editor for about a year on various telecoms titles for Emap. Good practice at turning up and getting on with things in a new team. And I learned a lot of weird telecoms acronyms.

Online
Did three days’ information design work on a website for the company that became MRM and was asked to join.