RMIT

Swinburne University of Technology

Innovation Lead at Today

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Today is a strategic design agency that uses design and technology to make better policy, bring products to life, design vivid futures, engage with diverse communities and design end-to-end service experiences.As Innovation Lead, I take a human-centered approach to technology. This means understanding and sharing the technological and social trends shaping our future and co-designing with people with lived experience. I run regular trends and signals forecasting sessions, and imagine speculative futures with our clients and their users. But, it’s not all navel-gazing contemplations of possible utopias, I also lead large UX and design projects and deliver polished products that people fall in love with.

Today (formerly Thick)

Innovation Lead

I was a founding member of the AKQA Research and Development team. A small but mighty skunkworks team inside our agency with a mission to explore industry challenges, emerging technologies and social and environmental issues. A rogue unit lighting fires under our traditionally cautious clients. Working in rapid three-week sprints, we imagined futures with emerging technology. Delivering working prototypes and radical ideas we generated a new stream of revenue for the agency and attracted a new caliber of client.As Design Lead, I saw projects through from creative ideation to execution and documentation. I presented and edited the documentary videos that accompanied many of our sprints, explaining our process and the technologies used. Working in the R&D team taught me to quickly ideate, test, prototype and document – a process I have continued to hone in my current role.

AKQA

Research and Development Design Lead

DT was a creative technology agency before being acquired by AKQA in 2016. At DT I cut my teeth as a designer, moving quickly up the ranks and leading a wide range of projects. Sitting in between the creative, strategy and design teams I was the guy people called when they didn’t know who to give a project to. I designed apps, games, installations, websites – whatever best told the story and delivered on the creative strategy. I wore many hats at DT doing user research, creative ideation, illustration, design, 3D modeling and animation. This gave me all the skills I needed to kickstart the agency’s Research and Development team with our creative director and creative technologist.

Senior Experience Designer, Creative

Before refocusing on design and technology I spent a number of years working in the film industry as a freelance editor and director. Working on corporate and music videos sharpened my storytelling chops and taught me how to hustle. Narrative design and storytelling is a hugely important skill that not enough designers develop. Being able to boil an idea down to its most simple and compelling form is at the core of all design and a passion of mine.

Callan Rowe Design for Screen

Freelance Graphic and Motion Designer

Worked on numerous film and design projects in a freelance capacity. My main responsibilities were the creation of motion graphics and editing for corporate promotional videos. I also created motion graphic elements for projections at awards ceremonies and presentations.