Hi, I’m Scott Thompson
Good looking isn't good enough. It never has been.
The best work does two things at once – it stops you in your tracks and says something worth saying. When those two things are working together, it's powerful. When they're not, it's just decoration.
I've spent my career working across brand, digital and marketing, from some of the world's most recognised agencies to smaller independents, and most recently out on my own. The problem I keep seeing is the same one. Businesses end up with something that looks one way, sounds another, and feels like neither. Each piece made sense when it was created, but nobody was looking at the whole picture.
So I look at everything, not just one channel or deliverable, and find out where the story has taken different paths. Then I help bring it all back together in a way that's consistent, considered, and actually effective.
I'm also a father of two, which has made me better at prioritising, more empathetic, and significantly better at staying calm when things go sideways. I bring the same approach to work and a reasonably well developed sense of humour about the whole thing.
If any of this resonates, let's talk.
Expertise & experience
Team Leadership
Led a distributed team of designers across international markets, balancing creative direction with individual support and development.
Mentored junior and mid-weight designers, fostering growth through regular feedback, design reviews, and career development support.
Managed team capacity, prioritisation, and deadlines to ensure consistent delivery across campaigns and long-term projects.
Developed and refined creative workflows to improve efficiency, collaboration, and clarity, evolving them through COVID and into a hybrid working model.
Responsible for recruitment and team structure including hiring, onboarding, and when necessary, conflict management or the difficult process of letting staff go.
Liaising with internal stakeholders, department heads, freelancers, suppliers, and directly with clients, ensuring alignment from concept to delivery.
Scoping projects, developing timelines, and creating accurate quotes and estimates.
Creative & Design
Art direction and execution of work across brand, digital, and traditional media, from social campaigns to TVCs, direct mail, OOH, and muti-channel ecosystems.
Conduct UX audits and ecosystem reviews, identifying opportunities from ad impression through to user conversion.
Design websites from early research and wireframes through to high-fidelity prototypes and developer delivery.
Lead creative development of TVCs and photoshoots from concept through to storyboarding, supplier coordination, and on-set direction.
Create best practice content for social and digital platforms, including motion graphics and editing video footage.
Develop and evolve brand identity systems including logos, visual language, brand guidelines, and tone of voice.
Confidently presenting creative to stakeholders and clients, and communicating the strategic rationale behind every idea.
Industry experience
Independent Creative 2025 - Present
Self Employed – Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Director of Design 2019 - 2025
Zib Digital – Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Senior Art Director 2012 - 2019
Leap Agency – Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Freelance Art Director/Senior Designer 2009 - 2011
JWT, Grey, RPM, Elvis, Hogarth Worldwide – London, UK
Graphic Designer 2004 - 2009
Creative Brew – Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Senior Designer 2002 - 2004
Travelindex Group Ltd – Christchurch, NEW ZEALAND
Applications & Tools
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Xd
Adobe Premier Pro
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Illustrator
Figma
Claude
ChatGPT