The Design Consultant

Guidance, advice & support
for brands, leaders & teams.

Why design?

Good design is good business.

Like it or not, design is running through every conversation, SOMETHING and decision in business. The way you hire, market, sell, and lead—it’s all by design. The question is…

Are you really designing the outcomes you want and need?

I help leaders stop designing by accident and start using design as a strategic advantage—embedding design into everyday thinking, planning and operating.

What I help with….

Creative clarity & confidence.

Design isn’t just how things look—it’s how they work. I help organisations harness the power of design and creativity to accelerate progress, find their voice and align their ambitions.

Whether you’re refreshing your brand, aligning your team, or navigating change, I bring practical tools and creative thinking that shape ideas, clarify decisions, align discussions, and build momentum.

So if you’re curious about how design can do more than ‘make things look nice’, keep reading or get in touch.

Leaders and founders tend not to have much design experience, meaning they carry false assumptions that undermine the true value of design as business tool.

— Somebody. somewhere

What I offer…

I have four service modules designed to meet a variety of needs depending on who you are, where you’re at and what you need.

Design Future & AI

COMING SOON

Design Direction

Most brands don’t lack creativity—they lack clarity.

I feedback, challenge and guide your visual and creative direction. Helping you see what, how, where and why your brand’s visual language and narrative could be improved or where’s there’s opportunity to improve its clarity and consistency.

Visual Audits & Brand Reviews

Sometimes a brand’s visual identity looks great but says nothing. I’ll assess how well your brand, website, and comms align with your strategy and engage your audience.

Brand System & Consistency

Consistency builds trust. I can guide and make recommendations on how best to create frameworks that make visual implementation more effective and efficient.

Creative Direction & Oversight

Creativity needs a compass. I guide your creative output to ensure consistency, relevance, and impact—turning scattered visuals into a coherent, compelling narrative.

Agency & Talent Support

Build the right team or choose the right agency to bring your vision to life. I’ll help identify skill gaps and shape briefs that ensure consistent, high-quality results.

Let’s talk Design Direction →

Example
Scenarios.

  • You’ve invested in a slick site, but something’s missing—it’s not landing with your audience. I’ll help diagnose the disconnect and refine the visuals and messaging.

  • Different teams are interpreting the brand in different ways. I’ll develop visual guidelines that bring coherence and consistency across all touchpoints.

  • A great idea can fall flat if it’s poorly presented. Let’s make sure your pitch is as visually compelling as it is strategically sharp.

  • You know it’s time for a change, but you need clarity before committing. I’ll guide a visual and narrative review to uncover the right path forward.

  • Activity without alignment wastes resources. You need your comms to cut through the clutter and engage your audience more effectively.

  • Good agencies need good briefs. I’ll help you brief, guide, and manage your creative partners to ensure alignment and quality.

Design Thinking

Problem Framing & Diagnosis

Sometimes a brand’s visual identity looks great but says nothing. I’ll assess how well your brand, website, and comms align with your strategy and engage your audience.

Idea Generation & Evaluation

Consistency builds trust. I can guide and make recommendations on how best to create frameworks that make visual implementation more effective and efficient.

Fancy some Design Thinking →

Audience & User Insight

Creativity needs a compass. I guide your creative output to ensure consistency, relevance, and impact—turning scattered visuals into a coherent, compelling narrative.

Example scenarios:

  • You’ve invested in a slick site, but something’s missing—it’s not landing with your audience. I’ll help diagnose the disconnect and refine the visuals and messaging.

  • You’re building solutions without fully understanding your audience. I guide teams to see the world through the eyes of their users and uncover what truly drives behaviour.

  • Brainstorming has left you with a sea of ideas but no clear direction. I help refine and prioritise the most viable solutions.

  • Perfect is the enemy of progress. I help teams develop simple prototypes to test ideas quickly and learn what works.

  • Not all ideas deserve to live. I introduce frameworks that focus teams on the highest-impact solutions, cutting through noise and distraction.

  • Past workshops generated ideas but no action. I facilitate sessions that drive real outcomes and tangible next steps.

Facilitation & Workshop Design

Build the right team or choose the right agency to bring your vision to life. I’ll help identify skill gaps and shape briefs that ensure consistent, high-quality results.

I guide teams to use critical thinking to reframe challenges, uncover hidden opportunities, and find unexpected answers (that are sometimes just hiding in plain sight). It’s not just about solving problems—it’s about finding opportunities that unlock real progress.

Services:

(Each project is built around the specific needs and challenges of your organisation so get in touch for a recommendations)

The best business ideas don’t come from spreadsheets.

Design Culture

Brand, Values & Alignment Audit

I facilitate conversations that help teams reconnect with purpose and values. I undertake and facilitate observations and conversations that build a broad picture of the organisation, highlighting both points of friction and opportunities for improvement.

Ideas & Innovation Workshops

Design isn’t just for designers. I help embed creative thinking across the business so every team can solve problems better.

Ready to Design Culture →

Connections & Collaboration Review

Ideas don’t thrive in silos or hierarchies. I help teams create working rhythms that include more voices and unlock better thinking.

Example scenarios:

  • Your teams feel siloed and misaligned. I help map where the disconnects are happening and guide you towards a more collaborative rhythm.

  • Externally you say one thing, internally it feels like another. I help align your culture with the values your brand claims to live by.

  • Marketing and Product. Sales and Ops. Whoever it is, I help uncover the root of friction and create pathways for trust, clarity, and better outcomes.

  • People are showing up, but ideas aren’t. I help surface blockers, create space for experimentation, and guide a cultural shift towards openness and contribution.

  • A recent change in leadership or structure has left the team unsteady. I help re-establish trust, clarity, and shared direction.

  • The team is diverse on paper, but voices aren’t being heard. I guide inclusive collaboration practices that make space for different ways of thinking and working.

  • Nobody wants to speak up. I guide you in creating a culture where constructive challenge is not just safe—but expected.

  • Meetings are happening, but alignment isn’t. I review the signals and habits holding your culture back and help reset how people truly work together.

  • You’re pivoting, but the team’s not coming with you. I help reconnect people with purpose and clarify the path forward.

Creative Energy & Mindset Coaching

Sometimes a tiny tweak in behaviour changes everything. I observe, decode, and highlight how everyday actions affect creativity, collaboration, and energy.

I help shape cultures that connect with your people, nurture their understanding, and give them a voice. When people feel safe to contribute and challenge ideas, collaboration thrives, ideas flow, and better decisions lead to bigger breakthroughs.

Services:

(Each project is built around the specific needs and challenges of your organisation so get in touch for a recommendations)

Being connected doesn’t just mean the internet is working.

Design Leadership

Perspective & Strategy Alignment

I help leaders zoom out, get unstuck, and reconnect with the bigger picture—because when you’re too close to something, it’s hard to see clearly.

Leadership Comms & Narrative

A muddled message confuses thinking and people hang off your words. I help you clarify what you’re saying, how you're saying it, and why it matters — internally and externally.

Discuss Design Leadership →

Design as a Strategic Tool

Design isn’t how it looks, it’s how it works. I show how it can drive clarity, alignment, innovation and decision-making across the business. Shaping smarter strategies and better outcomes.

Example scenarios:

  • I help translate lofty ambitions into language and visuals that people actually connect with.

  • I help bring focus, filter the noise, and guide your next steps through a design-led lens.

  • I help create shared language, strategic clarity, and creative energy across leadership.

  • I facilitate strategic conversations that open up new ways to solve old problems.

  • I introduce design mindsets that shift how you lead—more adaptable, more human, more effective.

  • I help make your communication more human, more creative, and more connected.

  • I help you slow down just enough to see clearly, and act decisively.

Creative Confidence & Leadership

You don’t need to be a designer to think like one. I guide leaders apply a design mindset in everyday work—curiosity, empathy, iteration—focusing on clarity, simplicity and user perspective.

I empower leadership teams to use design as a strategic tool to sharpen perspective, align strategy, and guide your people with clarity and intent. Because when leaders think like designers, they lead like visionaries.

Services:

(Each project is built around the specific needs and challenges of your organisation so get in touch for a recommendations)

Good leaders manage.
Great leaders design.

Gavin has the ability to take people with him on the journey. To deeply understand the matter at hand and combine both intelligence and imagination.

— Said someone, somewhere

Core Skills & Competencies

Creative Research & Insights
Creative Audits & Reviews
Skills Development
Brief Writing
Creative Direction
Project Management
Workshop Facilitation
Brand Management

Service Formats

1-2-1 Coaching & Training
1-2-1 & Team Mentoring
Fractional Leadership
Design Upskilling
Design Training & Support

Design progress.
Unlock potential.

If any of this sounds interesting or you’re curious to know if, what and how design could help your organisation.

Get in touch

Design is easy complex.

If you or your organisation struggles with design and designers, you’re not alone. Design is notoriously hard to define, quantify, and harness effectively—and for good reason…

  • Unlike law or finance, design hasn’t had centuries to cement itself. Modern design only gained traction in the 20th century. Many organisations are still figuring out where it fits and how to leverage it effectively.

  • Analytical, linear thinkers often struggle with design’s ambiguity. It’s iterative and thrives on uncertainty, which can feel unsettling to those who prefer predictable outcomes and clear metrics, leading them to undervalue its potential.

  • Design adapts to technological, social, and cultural shifts. From UX to service design and co-design, its boundaries keep expanding. This fluidity means people interpret and define design differently, creating inconsistency and confusion.

  • Design is often reduced to aesthetics—logos, websites, and visuals. But real value lies deeper in solving problems, shaping systems, and driving innovation. Organisations that see it as a final step miss out on its transformative potential.

  • Design blends analytical thinking with intuitive problem-solving. This duality doesn’t always fit neatly into business frameworks, making its value harder to explain and justify through traditional metrics.

Ask yourself…

Six questions I always ask and get asked so if you’re curious too, I’d be happy to discuss how the answers might be relevant to you and your organisation.

  • What is the role of design?

  • What type of design do we need?

  • How do we maximise value from design?

  • How do we budget for design?

  • When's the best time to involve design?

How it works.

No Strings…

Short-term, high impact feedback to fast-track progress when you need it.

  • By the hour, no ties

  • Review, validate or sense check problems or ideas

  • Get things out your own head

  • Get a fresh pair of eyes and external opinion that might help make a breakthrough

  • £75 per hour

For the Long Run…

A longer-term, high-touch partnership to embed design as a strategic tool and drive meaningful, ongoing change.

A collaborative journey with consistent guidance. Perfect for when you’re ready to go beyond quick fixes and invest in building a stronger, more aligned brand or business. I’ll work closely with you to refine processes, strengthen teams, and create lasting value over time.

Sometimes meaningful change takes time—and the right partner to see it through.

How much?
Normally monthly retainer for minimum 6 months

The deeper we go, the more we know.

My approach has the flexibility to meet you where you are so we can take this journey together. Broadly I work in one of three ways but ultimately every project is unique and so every process will reflect that .

Explore the options ↓

Quick Wins…

Sharp, focussed input and perspective that delivers value and move things forward.

  • A focused review with consolidated feedback.

  • Get external input, feedback or guidance

  • Support to identify practical next steps, refinements or further opportunities.

  • Typically £3-5k over 3-6 months

I’m Gavin Auty.

I partner with a limited number of businesses, leaders and teams. Training, advising and supporting them with two decades of creative experience and know how.

WHAT I BRING.

Fresh perspective – new sometimes unexpected, leftfield ideas, helping others think outside the sphere

+ Brutal honesty – Not afraid of asking difficult questions

+ The bigger picture – Good at joining the dots and seeing the bigger picture

+ Business focus – Money, wider business understanding

Focussed on long-term whilst understanding the current need