Creative, tinkerer, thinker out loud.

I'm Liam. I make things — mostly with code, occasionally with malt and hops, sometimes just notes about what I learnt trying.

What I do now

Since 2018 I've run Chaptech — a small, independent consultancy. The work is quietly unglamorous: long-form engagements with in-house teams, helping them ship the bits of digital product that need a steady pair of hands and a bit of taste. Design systems, frontend architecture, the awkward seams between teams.

I tend to stay for a while. Engagements are usually measured in months or years rather than days or weeks, and most of what I do lives behind login walls and NDAs — which is why this site doesn't have neat little case studies for any of it. Recent and current clients include a major UK bank and a household-name food brand. Past clients are happy to be referenced; ask me on LinkedIn if it matters to you.

Before that

Roughly a decade in agency creative-tech and innovation labs, where the brief was usually "make something that hasn't been done before, this week, for less money than that requires" — which turns out to be excellent training for everything afterwards.

Most of that work lived at the intersection of code and curiosity: Twitter-controlled physical objects, broadcast experiments, social tools, the occasional campaign that wandered into print and out-of-home. Some of it won awards. Some of it I'm still proud of. Some of it was very, very of-its-time. The archive doesn't hide either.

What I think about

• How to make things that feel made, not assembled.
• The fact that the best digital work usually contains a surprisingly good idea about something analogue.
• Ship the smallest honest thing first. Every project I've regretted started with too elaborate a plan.
• Comments and tests are gifts to your future self. The codebase you'll be opening at 11pm in six months will thank you.

Outside the screen

I cook ambitious things on weekends. I live in Esher, Surrey with my family.

Saying hello

I'm not really angling for work through this site — but if you want to talk shop, the right place is LinkedIn. Otherwise, hopefully something here is interesting on its own merit.