People

10 minutes with Jotham

Last Updated: 22 Jul 2021

Brightec Team

This blog post is part of the 10 Minutes series

Drum roll please. Our Head of Product quite likely never feels full, but Jotham is overflowing with ideas to turn your project visions into accessible digital products that people will love to use.

Known for his skills as a drummer and songwriter (within Brightec and his social network at least), Shoreham born and bred Jotham’s first hobby was drawing. Art and design flourished as this hobby became his studies, his career and even got him a family! This romantic designer proposed with a hand drawn, and painted, portrait - which was risky given his now wife is an artist in her own right.

Once Jotham knows what he wants, he won’t let any other option taint his vision. So much so that in his interview for Brighton University, when questioned, Jotham told them it wasn’t his preference to go there. So it’s just as well his first choice, Ravensbourne College did accept him to study Graphic Design.

Having graduated, Jotham was approached by Andy to discuss the potential of a UX/UI role. After a three and a half hour interview the next day, things moved pretty quickly and by Monday Brightec had a brand new UX designer.

Let me show you around

Jotham describes UX design as a way to help make people’s lives easier, quicker and better. He says it considers other people; like a friendly local who shows you all the shortcuts and attractions in town.

Now Head of Product, Jotham’s role requires a deep understanding of each product, and each of our clients and their needs. In an agency like ours, this means he’s doing this for multiple projects at one time, with a team of people he cares equally about. To say this man is a king of multi-tasking would be an understatement. We think he’s a hero.

Like any creatively minded person, Jotham sometimes needs a hand down from his ideas cloud. He loves a challenge; his creative mind brings enthusiasm to every project and he knows exactly where he wants things to be… which is why he, and our Operations Manager, https://www.brightec.co.uk/blo... are such a great team. They work closely together, to find the balance between road maps, ideas, plans, logistics, managing expectations and budgets to create strong, sustainable products. It does mean he’s had to let go of design a little (our new Head of Design James and designer Elle have got that covered) but he’s discovering he loves being able to design conceptual features and road maps rather than focusing on the detail.

A lover of board games and strategy, Jotham’s eager eye spots patterns in user experience to create better, user-centred mobile apps. He’s awesome at starting projects, with his anticipation of problems and enthusiasm to find solutions to avoid these before we start. Thorough in his approach to all he does, Jotham even created a spreadsheet for the Brightec team to rate and compare their favourite films. May the force be with you if you’ve not seen his two top rated choices.

Cereal-ously though, we’re becoming a little suspicious that he may actually be Pippin. Too unbelieva-bowl? Perhaps a second breakfast is just a ‘hobbit’ we should all try? Jotham explains that good cereal is all about ‘texture confrontation’. He prefers a three-tiered approach (Weetabix foundation and a Cheerios filler layer, topped with granola).

On the ball

Although having recently joined a 7-a-side Sunday football league, Jotham admits that he views being able to talk about football as more a matter of social skill, than enjoyment. While his wife suspects he wanted children purely as an excuse to play lego, Jotham claims he just really enjoys building physical things as so much of his job is intangible and concept driven. Like many of the Brightec team, his love of technology was sparked by the humble playstation. Of which he has fond memories of beating his sister and brother on Lego Racers.

If not entertained by Lego, Jotham can often be found building/expanding the family pirate ship he created in their garden (no wonder he’s an aye aye-phone user me hearties).

What would you do?

Considering Jotham has extensive plans for defending a castle in the event of a Zombie apocalypse, his answer to our infamous question was a little tamer than expected. ‘If you had a limitless budget, time & technology what is the one app you’d build?’

No doubt influenced by his musical roots, he would create an app to ‘trump Spotify’. ‘I’d keep and tweak all the good bits but simply pay the songwriters more for their music’. That’s our Jotham, and his firm belief that all things should benefit all people.

Click here for more about Jotham's approach to his work in both design and product development.