Hi, I’m Tom.

I’m an award-winning interactive developer based in Toronto.

Born and raised in Kent, the Garden of England, my goal is to share my enthusiasm for bold, brilliant digital design with standout teams.

After building a house (and a few 3D models…) I graduated with BArch in Architecture from the University of Nottingham in 2014.

I spent a year as architectural assistant at Hawkes Architecture Ltd., known for the Crossway PassivHaus featured on Grand Designs and one of Kevin McCloud’s 10 Grandest.

When roles for architectural assistants disappeared, I started as graphic designer for Halsbury Travel in Nottingham.

Over 2 years there I honed my design, identity and front-end development skills, defining the visual presence of 7 brands under one 30-year family business.

I began to take on more freelance work and eventually founded Rook Design, an agency focused on delivering high-quality digital products and bespoke interactive experiences.

Born out of East London and operating across the Atlantic, Rook enabled me to share my dev & design fluency with clients and personally elevate their business online.

In Toronto and working with OneMethod, I had the opportunity to lead a front-end role for incredible clients like Kijiji, Nestlé Canada, and the CFL, with a focus on interactive and engaging UI.

And when we weren’t working we had an ok time.

I balanced this work with Rook projects for familiar Ontario brands like Boom 97.3 and the AGO, and more unique sites like Rita Vinieris.

Further collaboration led me to AOS, a Toronto agency securing business with national bank RBC, local influencer Crumb, and international EDM DJ Frank Walker.

Leading these projects in a senior role and having access to awesome technology and talent motivated me to push our team's Vue framework further, to mix realities in the browser.

My most recent focus has been on the product side, developing 3 interdependent web apps for InVintory, a wine collecting platform. 

This has allowed me to explore JavaScript frameworks and build tools at scale, evolving and adding features to the SPA clients as the user base grew from tens to tens of thousands. 

My work now is focused on augmenting reality with a perceivable layer of intelligent information - especially via the browser.

I’m also in a band. Obviously.

We’re called ZIGO, we’ve been playing since the ol’ school days and our mums buy all our records.

You can hear our latest one on Spotify.

When our bassist is distracted I do our album artwork, and when we’re not recording I do the same for others.

IRL

Out there in the real world, my proudest achievement is running a marathon.

On 22nd April 2012 (I know, let it go) I ran the Virgin London Marathon to raise money for and awareness of Diabetes UK. I was diagnosed with Type 1 in September 2001.