Curriculum Vitae
Personal Detail
Owen Burrows II
Northern Quarter
Manchester
07725643164
owen@ob2.co.uk
Education
Manchester Metropolitan University —
BA (Hons) Graphic Design
2014—2018
Upper Second Class Bachelor of Arts Honours Degree in Graphic Design
First Class Degree in Contextualising Practice: Media Studies
• Submitting 2 first class essays: an investigation into how modern technology supplants all things tangible and an investigation into Metamodernism and it’s place in society and pop-culture.
Winner of ‘Dragons Den’ Brief
• Successfully pitching and presenting branding and designs for a modern-day opera based around first world problems called Stropera. Panel of judges included Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic, Tony Brook of Spin Studio and representatives from MadLab.
Winner of ‘the BBC at Design Manchester Workshop’
• Successfully conceptualised a possible and viable BBC product/venture within half an hour then delivered a pitch to a full room and a panel of judges (Heads of Departments at the BBC) who found my groups idea better than the other 8 participating groups.
Blackpool Sixth Form
2012—2014
A-Levels (3)
• Graphic Design – B
• Business – B
• Physical Education – D
GCSE’s - (10 (1A, 5B’s, 4C’s))
Including Maths, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, English, Physical Education, Art & Design, Religious Studies and French.
Employment History
Limbo Radio —
Art Director
2019—Present
A platform for experimentation, innovation and creativity. Broadcasting out of DownTex Mill in Manchester, we aim to showcase sounds from around our city and beyond.
My responsibilities include:
• Discovering local creatives and curating the weekly artwork residencies for the socials.
• Updating template info for daily schedule announcements.
• Design, improvements and upkeep of the website and its content.
• Photography of merchandise and artists.
• Interviewing artist residents weekly.
• Creation of branded content for events, merchandise and announcements.
• Studio hand and artist liaison at the station.
• Player Manager for Limbo Radio Pitch Faders 5-a-side football team.
More info/case study on the work I have done for Limbo can be found here.
WeAreNova —
Middle-weight Designer
2018—2019
“Nova provide startup mentorship, investment and the full delivery team required to take you from idea to a successful tech startup business.”
In this position, I lead the design for a number of tech startups, such as:
Menu Guru - “Menu Guru lets your customers personalise your menu with their unique allergy requirements, showing them which meals they can safely enjoy!”
Passmate - “Find your perfect driving intructor!”
NerdBox - ‘‘Get tech installed or fixed wherever you are!”
Sitewise - “Find local construction work, fast.”
While being partially involved in others like:
Mordex - “The world’s first e-sports travel platform.”
Connected Creatives - “empowers young people to self-publish their creative writing.”
• Leading Brand Workshops and Design Sprints.
• Prototyping and wire-framing user-journeys and user-flows.
• Designing interfaces for tablet, mobile and desktop applications.
• Carrying out user-testing interviews and making adjustments and iterations until functionality is seamless for the user.
Freelance Designer
2013—Present
Over the years I have been commissioned for create logo, posters, illustrations, comics, jewellery, t-shirt graphics, infographics, sales decks, promotional videos and video-editing, websites, mobile apps, full business rebrands.
Interests & Hobbies
I love playing, watching, talking, reading and doing anything that is about football. I’ve been playing the sport since I was 6 and have been going to Blackpool games with my Dad for as long as I can remember. I also grew up supporting Manchester United and Celtic, as my Mum’s side of the family is mostly Mancunian and Glaswegian. I do like other sports too… I played rugby union and cricket through high school where I was a flanker, left arm off-spinner and a bloody good slogger.
Music has always been a big part of my life. I don’t discriminate, I’m very open to all kinds of music; you could say I’m genre-fluid. I love to travel abroad to festivals and going to gigs and raves. I volunteer at Limbo Radio which is more of a hobby than a job and thats because it’s not just a radio station, it’s a community we’ve built over the last four years during our time at University. Now it’s a platform to meet very talented and creative people from different cultures and scenes that keeps the heart of Manchester’s underground scene beating.
Most of all, I just love doing creative things and passing on the lessons I’ve learnt over the years to other aspiring designers. Limbo has given me a brilliant chance to seek out the hidden talent Manchester has to offer and give them a platform to be appreciated. Other than that, I love doodling, making comics, social commentary, illustrating jokes and modern day situations.
But at the end of the day, there’s nothing I enjoy more than being in the company of friends or family and having a good chuckle.
References and Appraisals
“Since working with Owen on Menu Guru, he has been incredibly valuable in delivering what I believe is one of the best validate products we've had through our process. Owen has been flexible in working to difficult deadlines and has brought new ideas to the table along the way. He has taken a lot of what has been passed on from feedback and implemented them in creative and innovative ways. A piece of feedback we consistently get when the product is shown to allergy sufferers and restaurant owners is that the app looks amazing and that's a testament to Owen. He has strong convictions on how the product should look and I grew to trust his opinion very quickly.
I'm very much looking forward to working with him and seeing what we can deliver as we move into the growth phase.”
— Sunil Mistry, Founder of Menu Guru & Startup Consultant at WeAreNova
“Owen demonstrated excellent passion when he first joined and showed a willingness to get involved. I thought the most impressive aspect was his willingness to iterate, often it can be frustrating to redo and revisit work you have already put a significant amount of effort into but after the first few iterations he seemed to take it in his stride and refactor and redesign became just another part of the process. I really appreciate the way he engaged with the Elephant squad and were really a part of the team, this was important for me as I wanted to see the pros and cons of our designers working as part of their own squad.
I think the quality of work he produced is of a good standard and his willingness to iterate is refreshing.
— Richard Dean, Lead Product Manager at WeAreNova
“Owen is the second designer I have worked with whilst at Nova. It soon became apparent to me as I started working with him, that despite him starting at a graduate level, his level of commitment, dedication and professionalism is at the standard of other more senior designers I have worked with, both at Nova and outside of. I've always been able to count on him to go above and beyond on anything i've asked him to do. He always meets deadlines and his work is always exceptional.
Giving the example of Menu Guru, Owen had stated he had never previously designed an app. Quite quickly he learnt and adapted and designed a product that looks polished, professional and delivers a killer customer experience. In another instance, when given an extremely tight deadline to redesign a web page (from scratch) - he did so within a day and produced a design that was 10X better than the original.
From working with Owen, if I could pick any designer when starting a project, it would be him..”