Uses
The tools I actually work in for brand systems, campaigns and the commercial tracking behind them.
Brand & design
- Figma for identity systems, layout, and anything that has to be handed to another designer or a supplier without a conversation attached to it.
- Adobe Creative Cloud: Photoshop and Illustrator for artwork and retouching, InDesign for the long-form print work: company profiles, brochures and menus.
- Canva for fast campaign adaptations, social layouts and supplier-ready versions when speed matters more than building a full design file.
- Suppliers get stock, finish and colour specified up front. Most brand inconsistency I’ve had to fix started life as an unspecified brief.
Campaigns & channels
- Google Ads and Meta for paid media, reviewed weekly against cost-per-click and enquiry volume rather than impressions.
- Google Analytics for reading the path from traffic to enquiry, and Hootsuite for scheduling, publishing rhythm and campaign visibility.
- Brandwatch for social listening and category signals, especially when a brand needs competitor awareness before the next content or campaign move.
- Email marketing platforms for B2B outreach against verified contact lists. It is the channel that has produced the most quotation requests in my work.
- Social scheduling and grid planning, so a brand’s feed is designed as a system rather than assembled post by post.
Commercial
- HubSpot and CRM pipeline tracking: lead, follow-up, quotation, confirmed job, production, delivery, completion. A lead that isn’t visible in it doesn’t exist.
- Notion for operating notes and brand documentation; Miro and Lucidchart Visual Collaboration Suite for mapping customer journeys, campaign flows and stakeholder logic.
- Zapier and AI automations for repeatable reporting, handoffs and alerts, including custom-made tools that track competitors and help align brand value with what the market is actually doing.
- Spreadsheets for contribution and break-even modelling. Unglamorous, and the reason a brand decision can survive a finance conversation.
