Whoo are we?

We are husband and wife team, Jon and Emily Hooton. We met in ancient times (1992) and have been inseparable ever since.

Emily started work at Ken Vail Graphic Design after finishing her English degree in 1991 and after Ken retired in 1996, she took over running the business. Over the years, she developed her skills as a Production and Project Manager for KVGD, overseeing design and layout and meticulously checking proofs, working with editors, commissioning illustrations and researching photographs. In the late 90s, she became a Project Manager for educational publishing clients, as well as running the busy design studio.

Jon started at KVGD in 1993 on the front desk, but soon worked his way through various jobs in the studio until he settled on layout and design. At KVGD, Jon developed methods of standardising design and typesetting processes and of improving templates, which made the bulk of styling and layout simpler and more efficient. Jon became an expert at Quark™, Photoshop™, Illustrator™ and then InDesign™, he has recently mastered Powerpoint™ to develop teaching aids for interactive whiteboards, and converts books, PDFs and resources to Word™ for teachers to customise in the classroom.
 

By the end of 2015, KVGD had become a very successful design studio, but after the ups and downs of running a small business, we decided it was time for a change of pace. With two children nearing university age, and our dream of living by the sea looking like it might become a reality, we decided to leave on a high and go our own way.