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Helen
With 14 years’ experience as a writer, editor, journalist, publisher, project manager, event producer, lecturer and general creative head, Helen brings a wealth of creativity and know-how to the projects she works on.
She has set up award-winning magazines from scratch, edited festival websites for iTunes and Port Eliot, and led content teams on complex interactive projects. As founding partner, she leads on creative content – channelling her expertise into everything from multiplatform campaigns to digital magazines for the world’s biggest brand. Helen thrives on working with a dynamic creative team – from writers to branding experts, photographers, filmmakers, illustrators and digital whiz kids to find exciting solutions that can really make a difference.
After working as a freelance journalist and editor in London, she created, edited and published 16 issues of Stranger magazine, which gained an impressive national and international following. Her thirst for a good story has also taken her on editorial commissions from snowboarding the mountains of China to reporting on a music festival in the Sahara desert – via Croatia, Canada and Colombia to name but a few – writing for titles including Time Out, The Observer and The Independent. She’s also a response team member for ShelterBox (delivering emergency shelter to people affected by disasters worldwide – see her film about the Colombian floods), but still loves nothing more than curling up with a good book.
Stranger in the window
Creative? Want to raise your profile? How about slapping your finest work all over our great big windows?
Read More 〉Gifting opportunity with Children in Crisis
We love a good Christmas card, don’t get us wrong – but this year we wanted to do something that would last a bit longer than going in the recycling bin come January.
Read More 〉Stranger Christmas Pop-Up Shop
We’re taking the pain out of Christmas shopping with a hearty measure of cocktails, records and festive cheer in our first ever pop-up shop…
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Thinking differently
Everyone thinks and does things differently, has different comfort zones. Can modelling this help us work better?
Read More 〉My dear old Dad: the ultimate inspiration
A homage to Peter Gilchrist (5.9.42–27.5.15). Guiding light and Stranger’s founding father.
Read More 〉Merchants Manor: Relish magazine
Merchants Manor hotel wanted an eye-catching magazine to give visitors a fresh and original insight into the guest experience, as well as a ‘local’s eye’ view on Falmouth’s delights.
Read More 〉Make your content pay its way…
With less than half of brands rating their content marketing as effective, how can we be more strategic about the way we approach our content to make it work harder?
Read More 〉Image makers, icon shapers
Blondie, Bourdin and bedroom selfies: from the advent of punk to shoe-inspired visual storytelling and the Instagram generation, a brief foray into the timeless power of image…
Read More 〉Raft on film
A beautiful film to remember the Raft event – and remind us of the lessons learned about creativity, impossibility and the inspiration to be found in the unlikeliest of places.
Read More 〉WIN: The Challenger’s Almanac
The Challenger’s Almanac is a beautifully curated selection of “stories and wisdom, written by people who aren’t afraid to break the rules.” We have five copies to give away.
Read More 〉Mad, bad and wrong: how to brainstorm better
How can we think differently about thinking differently?
Read More 〉MADE.COM
MADE.COM wanted to show the real-world appeal of its products with a bold, irreverent new approach – an innovative ‘social showroom’ online platform.
Read More 〉“Fake it til you make it”
Public speaking is the third biggest fear in the UK, making it scarier than death in the public consciousness. How can we grapple back control and be more assured?
Read More 〉The wisdom of crowdfunding
I’ve had an idea. Haven’t we all? But I think there’s something in it… A new experimental publishing project, which I’ll be telling you more about very soon. But the ever-burning question: how to pay for it? Easy! Thanks to the stratospheric growth of crowdfunding, we live in an age where it really does feel […]
Read More 〉Losing the plot
“A book of maps designed to get you lost.” A beautiful box, wrapped up in finely graphic paper. Anticipation as my finger hooks open the stickers. Inside, 16 intriguing looking, brightly coloured pamphlets. As I unpack them I can feel the promise of different contents, weights, folds, thicknesses. A delectable sniff of fresh print as […]
Read More 〉Setting a new course
THIS? OR THIS? Aesthetically, it’s hardly a difficult choice is it? But logically it makes a lot more sense than you might think too. Yesterday I immersed myself in the fair transport movement, joining hundreds welcoming the Tres Hombres (the world’s only engineless sail cargo ship) and New Dawn Traders into Falmouth after a nine-month […]
Read More 〉Patchwork Feeding
I’ve recently been helping proofread The Challenger’s Almanac, a bold and beautiful new book that brings together some of the most inspiring, creative and daring voices from across the business world to show how, if you swim against the tide and think the unthinkable, business really can be a force for good. Needless to say, […]
Read More 〉Take the Bait…
Our new mini-magazine, Bait, has been lovingly crafted to Feed your creativity. Take a twisting turning journey of discovery and see what it sparks. Devour creative crumbs leading to Einstein’s storm-thwarted boat. Follow the thread back out to meet a nun who changed the course of modern art. Lose yourself in the adventure… and emerge […]
Read More 〉Crumbs
I recently heard a poet talking about how surprised he was when he saw the illustrations come back for his first book, because the illustrator had seen something completely different in his work from what he saw when he was writing it. It made me think and prompted the idea for this project… It’s all […]
Read More 〉2014: Year of the content avalanche…
Banner ads are dead. SEO is dead (or fighting for its life). It’s all about quality, meaningful content now. That was the message coming from a couple of big cross media industry events late 2013. There may have been mutterings in insider, specialist circles for a while, but now the secret is out. Big time. […]
Read More 〉Exploding stories, fragmented fables
Temple Studios, Hollywood, sometime in the 1950s. We’re in a dimly lit make-up room. A stern woman pushes an actress onto a stool. She holds a light up to the actress’s face, which we see is bruised; her dress and bra soaked in blood. The actress winces as the woman applies her make-up; a darker […]
Read More 〉Creating content: seven timeless tips
Formats come and go, but the rules of communication will live forever.
Read More 〉True Vision: notes from two days of inspiration
“I don’t like ads that say ‘If you drink our rum you’re going to be sexy’… I hate that artifice between the brand and the reality. It has to be real, honest.” Dan Germain, head of creative at Innocent, is telling a captivated audience at the annual Vision conference in Bristol about the power of […]
Read More 〉Exciting opportunity for writers: Audiotor
Audiotor is an innovative immersive listening experience that will be bringing Bodmin Moor to life like never before – and you could be part of it. An innovative project which has been awarded funding from Arts Council England, it’s the work of creative producer Michael White in collaboration with Caradon Hill Area Heritage Project, Hall […]
Read More 〉Film: How I Think
There’s something about pedalling. For me, it doesn’t just turn the wheels on my bike; it gets those cranial cogs turning too. I can sit at my desk, or stare at a notepad, for hours, trying to muster all my creative forces to generate a new idea… But if I get on my bike and […]
Read More 〉Uzma Bozai
Emerging high-end womenswear fashion brand Uzma Bozai were looking for a creative approach to help establish a distinctive brand personality to support their launch collection.
Read More 〉Body language: No Fit State Circus
The fanning of fingers. The angle of an arched back. The curve of the neck. The position of the toes. The swing of the legs… then straightened and held, against all natural laws. Grace and fluidity disguising sheer strength and tension – muscles silently screaming against gravity. Last night I went to see No Fit […]
Read More 〉National Trust Coleton Fishacre
Built by Rupert D’Oyly Carte, Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company and Savoy Hotel founder, Coleton Fishacre’s story takes in Victorian morals, the Jazz Age, cocktails and fancy dress parties, Art Deco style,
Read More 〉Back to basics
My grandpa, George, used to read the dictionary every day – until just a few days before he died. He said we’re never too old to learn new words, and that most of us just churn through the same old words we always have. There are tens of thousands of words in the English language, […]
Read More 〉Port Eliot download
We’re just back from Port Eliot Festival 2012 and boy, what an incredible weekend. Too much to tell and too little time, so in the meantime here are a few initial photographs and a couple of short films to give you a quick flavour of what went down. This week and next we’ll be busy […]
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