20 years in the making
​ 

1998... That's mad! 

I was headhunted during the last few months of my College Course in Graphic Design and Art History. Leographics UK Ltd offered me a very unique position. I was to join a studio of talented individuals who hand-painted greeting cards, posters and wall art for a variety of big-name properties including Disney. Back then Disney was transitioning to providing images of their characters on CD for use with licensed products. The way forward was clearly going to be digital based and Leographics were on the cutting edge.

I was tasked with helping the traditional artists convert to digital media. During that time they would teach me artistic skills such as airbrushing, oil painting, water colour painting and other key skills such as masking and composition, and I would show them how to replicate those techniques on a Mac. Pretty soon their creative minds were embracing the new media and we started to produce outstanding digital artwork for print.

After one year I became Studio Manager and we continued to increase productivity thanks to the use of computers. 

After another year, feeling on top of the world aged 20, I took the plunge into setting up my own business. I built up a customer base and started to produce my own poster and greeting card designs, as well as securing further licensed product contracts which allowed me to be responsible for handling official artwork from such properties as Disney, Pixar, 20th Century Fox, BBC, Comedy Central, DC Comics, Marvel and New Line Cinema.

I'll never forget seeing one of my own poster designs being purchased in a shop by a young boy.

For seven years I designed original posters and greeting cards, created logos and branding for a number of customers and small businesses and continued to work with licensed products. The licensing production company, www.scandecor.se, based in Sweden, eventually trained an in-house designer to handle their artwork. This gave me a perfect opportunity to return to a studio.

Two more years in a studio environment brought me up to date with advances in graphic design and print, sharpened my instincts and put me in a position to learn even more aspects of design in a variety of industries. Working for www.taylorbloxham.co.uk allowed me to learn from their 80+ years of experience in printing, assist photoshoots for both models and products, and to design for some extremely huge customers. 

Soon, as described on the About Us page, an unbelievable and unique opportunity arose for Rebecca and I, and, without hesitation, TWF Solutions was born.