New Work, New Staff…
After a hectic couple of months here at AHOY, we’ve hired four fantastic people we’ve had on our radar for some time, all while putting the finishing touches to a range of exciting projects…
We’ll have more on our current projects later; meanwhile, we’d like to introduce you to our new staff…
Creative Director
Tom Heaton has come to AHOY from DS.Emotion, where he spent two years as the Creative Director of the Manchester studio. Prior to that, he was a senior designer at Raw for nearly seven years, working on a huge range of sports brands and organisations. Concept-driven and passionate about all things typography, Tom is a multi-award-winning designer who was also a UK dodgeball quarter finalist in 2006; an inter-agency tournament may be announced in the near future.
In his obligatory motivational Creative Director quote, Tom said:
“I’m really happy to be working with such a strong team: the quality of work here at AHOY is really high, the knowledge is superb and the studio atmosphere is great. I’m eager to help us push on to the next level; we have some serious diem to carpe.”
Fancy following Tom on social media?
Twitter: @tom_heaton
Instagram: @thomasheaton
Account Director
Account director Matt Smith joins us from Byte Resources, a creative and marketing recruitment agency, which he founded. Previously, he spent 12 months in account management at Manchester branding agency True North, having come to his senses and moved up north from London, where he’d spent five years at branding and packaging agency Design Bridge.
With a degree in Marketing and a passion for the food and drink industry, Matt’s well placed to take the lead on a number of our key accounts. Which is good, given that he’s our account director. Out of hours, Matt enjoys socialising and playing squash.
Matt commented:
“I’m loving being at AHOY so far. I was inspired by the agency’s food and drink expertise in particular, and the variety of projects we have in the pipeline is pretty exciting. I’m looking forward to building on the success the agency’s had so far.”
Copywriter
Lorrie Hartshorn has joined us in-house on a part-time basis, bringing with her more than 14 years’ experience in content writing and content marketing strategy. Fluent in several languages, Lorrie is a big fan of grammar, etymology and puns, which is surprisingly useful in a branding agency. When she’s not here at AHOY, she can be found running her freelance business, writing fiction, or wrangling her toddler.
Lorrie said:
“I’m really pleased to have joined the team at AHOY—I’ve worked with designers and developers before, but usually on a remote basis, so it’s lovely to be up close and personal with some amazingly talented individuals. Incorporating content strategy into the earliest stages of projects is really strengthening our offerings to clients, and I’m excited to see where we go next.”
Fancy following Lorrie on social media?
Twitter: @lorriehartshorn
Front-end Developer
Prior to joining AHOY, self-taught front-end developer Matt Mcclatchie spent two-and-a-half years in a design and development role at First 10, previously Fist of Fury, in Leeds. Following his move to Manchester, UX and design expert Matt pinpointed AHOY as an agency he’d love to work with, and sent over his CV. The rest, as they say, is history.
Matt said:
“So far, I’m loving AHOY. The type of work that we do is perfect for me: it’s adventurous, creative and allows for experimentation and progression with the code we write. The designers are excellent and the companies that we work with are exactly the kinds of companies I want to work with.”
So there we are: four cracking new people in house, bundles of talent and, let’s be honest, a wealth of good looks. AHOY is on the up.