Meet Andrew Twist, our new Head of Content and Experience Design!
Aren’t we just full of announcements recently!
We’re expanding our team once again with a fantastic new Head of Content and Experience Design; Andrew Twist. Andrew is a strong presence in HE, spending 8 years at the University of Sheffield and recently taking on an interim role as Head of Digital Communications at the University of Leeds.
As is our tradition, we asked Andrew a few questions. :)
Can you tell us a little bit about your career?
After studying Journalism Studies at the University of Sheffield my career kicked off with roles at PR agencies in Doncaster, Manchester and Sheffield.
However, it was when I accepted a job at the University of Sheffield in late 2013 that I feel my career truly “began”. I worked at the University of Sheffield for 7 years - initially as a Social and Digital Media Officer and subsequently as a Digital Content Producer and Content Strategist.
My time at Sheffield was incredibly varied and I was lucky to work on different types of projects across social media, video production, website development and corporate communications. This helped me develop a very broad communications and marketing skill set and a strong understanding of the higher education sector.
In late 2021 I joined Leeds on an interim basis as Head of Digital Communications. This gave me the opportunity to see things from a different level and to experience taking responsibility for a much bigger team of talented colleagues across web and social.
I’ve been very lucky to work with so many talented people in Higher Education content and communications roles and love working with teams to find answers to challenging questions and finding new and innovative ways to work.
What has been the most interesting project you have worked on?
One of the most interesting projects I’ve worked on so far in my career is the University Website Project we completed at Sheffield. Between 2018 and 2020 I was part of the team responsible for replacing our old and broken content management system with something that would allow us to better create, publish, manage and maintain website content across the university.
I was part of the project from day one and within our small initial team, I learned so much about content design, user experience, design systems, user testing and agile development.
The project pushed me to learn new skills and ways of thinking and I’m incredibly proud that we were able to deliver a product that vastly improved the experiences of both visitors and editors.
What is the biggest goal you want to achieve at Pickle Jar?
One of the biggest goals I want to achieve at Pickle Jar is to help our clients be as deliberate, purposeful and efficient as possible in how they design content and experiences for their audiences. I think there are some exciting opportunities to break the established status quo of how educational institutions use digital and social media channels and to help our clients achieve more value for the time and effort they spend on content, marketing and communications.
What sort of content inspires you?
On a very basic level, I am inspired by content that knows its purpose and has been designed to do a specific job well for its audience. We live in a world of ubiquitous content and it often feels like there is far more noise than there is signal. At its worst, this can feel like vanity publishing or content that only exists to tick a box and demonstrate that an attempt has been made. It’s always refreshing and inspiring to see content that is truly user-first and where a strategic effort has been made to not only make something useful but also to properly distribute it and ensure it reaches its audiences.
What is something new you have learnt over the last year?
One thing I’ve learnt over the last year is the value of stepping out of comfort zones and pushing yourself to try things and have new experiences. I’d been very settled in my role at the University of Sheffield and it would’ve been easier for me to stay in the role I was in, but stepping out of that comfort zone and into my role at the University of Leeds has taught me so much about myself and my career. I’m excited to carry this mindset into my new challenge at Pickle Jar and to embrace the uncertainty of the new.
Now for some quick single-word answers:
- Cats or dogs? Dogs
- Mornings or evenings? Evenings
- Favourite season? Autumn
- Favourite app? Notion
- Favourite food? A pie barm cake from Galloways in my home town of Wigan.
- Biggest pet peeve? A “we’ve always done it this way so why bother changing” mentality.
- Job you wanted as a child? Footballer (specifically for Everton FC)
- Favourite font? My head says Inter, my heart says Rupert Sans
- Most used emoji? Green heart 💚
Andrew welcome to the Pickle Team, we can’t wait to work with you!
If you read this and you are eager to work with Andrew, let us know!
