15+
Years

50+
Brands

17
Agencies

Alex Melville Studio Profile Photograph 2026 Right

The first five years of my career were filled with team fluctuations, business pivots, and relentlessly fast-paced work that taught me the importance of both speed and quality in delivering on a client's promise. It was when I won my first award for ‘Best use of Data' on a campaign for The Financial Times that I knew what design thinking was capable of.

The next seven were spent freelancing with agencies across London, learning what ambition looks like from the inside. I learned how the best ideas emerge from pressure, how craft is non-negotiable, and how creative leadership means fighting for what’s right, not what’s safe.

The last three have been spent in-house at giffgaff, asking a harder question: how do you build teams that produce great work consistently? Not once. Repeatedly. And at scale. With teams who care as much as I do.

As a successful creative director I know when to prompt, and more importantly, when to pick up the pencil.

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01 / The freelance years

Where my ambition
got its education

Eight years freelancing inside the rooms where the best creative thinking happens. From Wieden+Kennedy’s relentless pursuit of cultural resonance, through the strategic digital precision of AKQA, to Droga5’s belief that the best ideas make business and culture move simultaneously. These weren’t just jobs. They were an education in creative standards.

Neverland 

Bright Spark

AKQA

Poke

Publicis

Leagas Delaney

Havas Helia

AMV BBDO

Droga5 

Wieden+Kennedy 

Grey

Possible

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Neverland
giffgaff

When giffgaff pivoted from their grassroots ‘run by you’ positioning to the purpose-driven ‘up to good’, they needed a visual system that could match their ambition, one that could cut through the noise and scale across every touchpoint.

Grey
Tuborg

Grey developed a unique digital experience for Tuborg that enabled people to not just experience the life of a celebrity, but to experience a night living in their shoes.

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Motion Design Showreel
Mixed works 2016-2019

02 / Building business capability

Where curiosity became my greatest capability

Alex Melville studio portrait photo

This is where leadership became real, after many years serving director roles, it’s at giffgaff where I began looking at the operational infrastructure needed to deliver the systems, principles, and culture, my team needed to do their best work and enable the business to grow.

I’ve now spent three years at the gaff, building up their in-house studio capability. Removing single points of failiure and bottlenecks in the studio process, driving collaborative tool and technology adoption, breaking down silo'ed behaviours, and enabling designers to focus more on creative exploration across campaigns, and providing the business with a real growth engine. The in-house studio now shapes how the brand shows up and drives effecetivenes at scale, across all internal marketing channels.

I’ve achieved many firsts in my position as acting Head of Design at giffgaff; I was the first designer to lead a hackathon team (we hacked a product which is now being taken into production); The first design lead to close the gap between agency partners and in-house capability; The first design lead to bring insight and data into our design process, one of the key drivers in boosting the effectiveness of every campaign we’ve shipped since being there, providing steady YoY growth.

03 / Technology as a tool

Where technology amplifies, not replaces

Over my entire career I have helped creative teams understand and adopt transformative technologies - including most recently AI - to improve their workflows.

I have been at the front of technology integration across giffgaff by building custom tools that have saved money, automated workflows that save time, launched automated campaigns that reduce time to ship, and expanding studio capability.


04 / Capabilities

Always hungry, always curious, and always hands-on

Creative Direction Design Leadership Art Direction Brand Strategy Visual Identity Design Systems Motion Design Campaign Creative Generative AI Design Operations Team Building UX / UI Direction Stakeholder Engagement Creative Mentorship Brand Consistency Digital Production Storytelling

My current favourite tools

tool-maxon-cinema4dtool-openai-chatGPTtool-higgsfield-AItool-krea-aitool-freepik-AItool-google-geminitool-framer-websitestool-figmatool-cavalry-scenegrouptool-anthropic-claude-codetool-affinity-studio-canvatool-adobe-creative-cloudtool-maxon-cinema4dtool-openai-chatGPTtool-higgsfield-AItool-krea-aitool-freepik-AItool-google-geminitool-framer-websitestool-figmatool-cavalry-scenegrouptool-anthropic-claude-codetool-affinity-studio-canvatool-adobe-creative-cloudtool-maxon-cinema4dtool-openai-chatGPTtool-higgsfield-AItool-krea-aitool-freepik-AItool-google-geminitool-framer-websitestool-figmatool-cavalry-scenegrouptool-anthropic-claude-codetool-affinity-studio-canvatool-adobe-creative-cloudtool-maxon-cinema4dtool-openai-chatGPTtool-higgsfield-AItool-krea-aitool-freepik-AItool-google-geminitool-framer-websitestool-figmatool-cavalry-scenegrouptool-anthropic-claude-codetool-affinity-studio-canvatool-adobe-creative-cloudtool-maxon-cinema4dtool-openai-chatGPTtool-higgsfield-AItool-krea-aitool-freepik-AItool-google-geminitool-framer-websitestool-figmatool-cavalry-scenegrouptool-anthropic-claude-codetool-affinity-studio-canvatool-adobe-creative-cloud

05 / Brands worked with

Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Ocado
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Vodafone
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Quickbooks
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Volvo
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Nespresso
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio M&S
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Lego
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Honda
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio HSBC
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Lacoste
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Lenovo
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio John lewis
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Helly Hansen
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio GSK
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Gocompare
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio giffgaff
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Gillette
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Deutsche Post
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Emirates
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Ford
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Financial Times
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio DHL
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Crocs
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Christies
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Deutsche Bank
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio British Airways
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Braun
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Bloomberg
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio Bose
Alex Melville Brand Portfolio blu

06 / Selected works

Everything made with purpose

“Technology - including AI - will always play a role in creativity. It serves to expand exploration, increase efficiency, and frees teams to focus on personal judgement, storytelling, and craft.”

My creative philosophy

07 / Contact

Let’s make something worth showing

If you’re building a brand that needs to mean something, or a creative team that needs to believe in what they’re making, let’s talk.

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