Member spotlight: Sharon Armstrong Creative
Date published:
This week we caught up with Sharon Armstrong Creative to find out how they’re going further with Chamber membership.
Where are you based?
North Shields
How many people do you employ?
1
Give us a brief overview of your business.
I’m an independent graphic designer and illustrator based in North Shields. With over 20 years of experience in the creative industry I decided to set up Sharon Armstrong Creative almost 3 years ago.
Previously I’d worked both in-house at Tommee Tippee which is where my illustration skills developed and as a multidisciplinary designer for marketing agency, Narrative, where I gained extensive experience of branding projects. Over the years I’d built up a wealth of varied skills and knowledge which I was able to bring to my freelance business.
I now work collaboratively with businesses of all sizes from start-ups through to established brands on a wide variety of projects including:
Logos and Branding – using creative ideas to bring your brand personality to life and connect with your audience.
Print Design – creating impactful design solutions across stationery, flyers, brochures, and annual reports.
Infographics – taking complex information or statistics and making it more visually appealing and easy to digest.
Illustration – creating bold, colourful illustrations that inject life into your brand. They can be used across web, social media or in print.
I also work with a number of marketing agencies and businesses to provide outsourced freelance support.
Tell us about a recent business success.
At the beginning of 2022, I was approached by Rebuilding Heritage, a UK-wide free support programme aimed at the heritage sector who help organisations respond to the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. I was commissioned to create some bespoke illustrations and infographics which would appear on their website and social media.
They wanted the illustrations to bring to life a series of podcasts that they were launching about Equality, Diversity & Inclusion. I began by utilising the existing colour palette and square shapes from their brand identity to create a suite of illustrations that were on brand and easily recognisable.
I then produced creative concepts that visually convey each podcasts message. The final illustrations are bold, eye-catching and most importantly showcase diversity across race, gender, age, religion and abilities to align them with the podcast’s message.
The second part of the project was to create a series of infographics to summarise the programmes findings. Rebuilding Heritage had a lot of complex data they needed to present to their members in an easy to manage and eye-catching format.
By using clean, appealing icons and graphics that adhered to the brand guidelines, I brought the data to life and made it much easier to read and take in. Rebuilding Heritage were thrilled with the finished work and had this to say about the experience of working together.
“Working with Sharon was a great experience for us. She was very intuitive and seemed to understand exactly what we were looking for from the get-go, making creative decisions that perfectly matched our requirements and offering suggestions that improved upon our original ideas. Not only was she extremely friendly and polite, but she worked far faster than we had anticipated!
Her infographics very clearly illustrated a number of complex topics and represented otherwise dry numerical data in a way that was both engaging and aesthetically pleasing. She also was very patient with us (and our delays) and speedily undertook any edits we requested.
We could not have asked for a better artist for these tasks and will definitely call upon her again for any graphic requirements we may have in the future.” India Guest, Communications and Engagement Officer, Rebuilding Heritage.
The infographics themselves were greatly received by their members, having been viewed almost 700 times. They received the highest engagement rate across social media out of all the resource types released during the programme. Because of this Rebuilding Heritage commissioned me again to create one final infographic before the program ended. I was really happy for the opportunity to work with them again and to receive this positive feedback.
“We were so pleased with the work Sharon did on our first series of four infographics. We’d had such positive feedback, both internally and from our audiences, that when it came to discussing the possibility of producing an additional fifth infographic document, there was no question of who we would ask to create it! As well as working extremely speedily and professionally, Sharon has perfectly captured the Rebuilding Heritage brand and conveyed often complex data in an attractive and accessible way.
These resources have helped us to share and disseminate our findings as well as to promote our programme in an eye-catching way. They have been shared with hundreds of followers and subscribers, have been used in numerous meetings – both internal and external – and incorporated into many presentations and reports.” India Guest, Communications and Engagement Officer, Rebuilding Heritage.
Why are you a Chamber Member?
I love working for myself and running my business however occasionally it can be isolating at times. I joined the Chamber to be part of a community, to meet other business owners, learn from their experience and also to raise my profile within the North East.
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