Infographics

The origins of my visual practice began long before my formal academic career. As a child, my spatial literacy was nurtured by my nan, who worked as a kitchen designer. Armed with pads of squared paper, she taught me the foundational mechanics of drafting: how to translate real-world dimensions into precise scale drawings and how to construct objects using isometric projection. That early exposure transformed drawing from a simple pastime into a practical tool for spatial problem-solving.

This passion for visual precision deepened through a childhood fascination with electronics. Like many young experimenters, I was captivated by the works of Forrest M. Mims III, particularly his Getting Started in Electronics and the Engineers' Mini Notebook series. Beyond the circuitry itself, I deeply admired Mims’s meticulously hand-drawn and hand-lettered diagrams. They possessed an inherent warmth, clarity, and pedagogical brilliance that made complex technical principles instantly approachable. Around the same time, hours spent playing SimCity fostered a macro-perspective—training me to view cities, infrastructure, and resource flows not as isolated components, but as deeply interconnected, dynamic living systems.

To bridge intuition with formal engineering disciplines, I completed a City and Guilds qualification in Computer-Aided Design (CAD) during college. This formalization of technical drawing principles proved invaluable as my career progressed. When I began authoring technical books, I took hands-on ownership of the visual diagrams, drawing on both the structured precision of CAD and the accessible, user-centric clarity inspired by Mims. Drawing diagrams for publication reinforced a critical lesson: a truly effective technical illustration does not simplify by removing essential data; rather, it organizes complexity so that the underlying logic becomes transparent.

Today, that visual toolkit is central to my academic research in critical materials, the circular economy, and regional energy systems. When mapping the journey of materials or evaluating supply chain resilience, traditional linear charts often fail to capture the multi-dimensional nature of the data. To overcome this, the isometric plan view of systems mapped onto geographic landscapes has become something of a stock-in-trade in my practice. Whether visualising regional energy systems or articulating the macro-level Masterplan for Tyseley Energy Park, projecting layered data isometrically across a geographical terrain provides an immediate intuitive grasp of scale, location, and connectivity. These infographics serve as vital communication bridges—translating dense, multi-layered academic research into clear, actionable insights for policymakers, industry stakeholders, and the wider public. Ultimately, every infographic curated on this page represents a dual synthesis: the analytical rigor of academic inquiry combined with the visual storytelling required to turn complex system-level dynamics into shared understanding.