We founded Knifedge to make great shows, which achieve extraordinary results by breaking boundaries. We have a pretty broad view of what 'show' means. The creative team are all polymaths who are equally at home with theatrical storytelling as they are with understanding brands and their needs. You can't have effective communication without cultural reference points, and that's why we're just as pleased to create work purely for audiences as we are with marketing and communications work.

I've formed this way of looking at things throughout a joyously varied career, which has explored everything from prop-making to film direction. All experience is valuable, and I encourage the whole team to listen and learn from everyone around them, colleague and client alike. Despite our varied experiences, somehow everyone on the creative team gravitates back to their first love, which is designing shows and telling stories.

This page introduces the rest of the Knifedge team in brief. To really get to know us and see what we can do to help you make great shows and tell great stories, do get in touch.

Jonathan Brigden is a founder and managing director of Knifedge. His 20 years experience in the creative industry enables him to keep a firm grip on the rudder.

Jonathan started what was to become Knifedge in 1996. His career has spanned the music, TV and film industries. Jonathan started out as a musicians contractor for artists as diverse as Siouxsie Sioux to Paul McCartney, moved on artist management, looking after composers Jocelyn Pook, Max Richter, Luke 'Spacer' Gordon and Andrew Skeet. Jonathan's career has also spanned the arts, being general manager Early Opera Company, raising hundred of thousands of funding from the Arts Council England and producing fully staged opera. He has also been general manager of Music Beyond Mainstream and was Creative Director for The Orchestra. All this diverse experience has led to the creation of Knifedge with Matthew Freeman and Timothy Bird. We are proud to have established Knifedge as a leading creative communications agency producing amazing creative work from digital development to theatrical production, and live events to charity fundraising campaigns

With over 25 years' experience in the media industry, Matthew Freeman is well suited to Knifedge’s diversity. After university and a fleeting moment teaching, his career started in sales with CBS Records in 1987. He went on to be Sony Music Australia’s classical music man for some years, based in Sydney, before nurturing ABC Classics, a small independent Australian classical label. In 1996, he was appointed Artist and Repertoire Director at Naxos, in 1997 establishing Naxos’ UK office. In 2001 he headed up Media Division of Music Sales Ltd., working with leading film and television composers.

As a founder of Knifedge, Matthew is involved in all aspects of our client's projects and enjoys nothing better than working with our unbelievably talented and committed team of designers and creatives. When not living and breathing Knifedge, Matthew spends his time as a brewer of Bitter, refining the art of sausage making and tilling the soil on his allotment.

For the past four years, Nina Dunn has been specialising in integrated projection design and content production for Theatre, Live Events and out of home communication following five years spent working in the fields of design for Film and Broadcast.

Over the past twelve months, she has designed projections for Northern Ballet’s ‘Cleopatra‘, choreographed and directed by David Nixon with a new score by Claude-Michel Schoenberg, The National Theatre’s production of ‘Emperor and Galilean‘ in a new version by Ben Power and directed by Jonathan Kent and the Mariinsky Theatre’s new production of Britten’s opera, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. She has also co-designed projections for Backbeat at the Duke of York’s Theatre with Timothy Bird.

Current projects for Theatre include projection design for Cameron Mackintosh's 'Phantom of the Opera' (Tour)  Raymond Gubbay’s ‘Aida‘ (RAH), ‘The Flying Dutchman‘ (ENO) and ‘La Bohème‘ (WNO).

Nina was educated at Edinburgh university, Goldsmiths College and the Universitaet der Kuenste, Berlin and is based in London.

 

Tom Hadley is a Creative Director who has helped raise the profile of numerous organisations, including many in the charitable and public sectors.

Tom has worked with Knifedge for 7 years producing ground-breaking and award-winning creative work. Equally at home directing digital fundraising campaigns raising hundreds of thousands of pounds, designing sets for West Ends shows or creating the visuals for Snow Patrol and Placebo.

He has developed his own particular approach to documentary, campaign and promotional projects. He is expert at capturing observational documentary, often in highly sensitive situations and he has a wealth of experience shooting in the UK and abroad.

 

Lucy Ockenden has been working in the arts and entertainment industry for almost a decade an has worked extensively both in the UK and overseas. She is currently working with Björk on the live element of her Biophilia project. Having worked as a production electrician, pyrotechnician, programmer and projectionist, her production management draws on this experience. Having recently produced, managed and designed African Sanctus 2010 at Canterbury Cathedral and Drew McOnies Slaughter, she is up to date with major venue legislation and safe working practices.

Since joining Knifedge Lucy has been production manager for Knifedge’s set and projections for the Josh Groban World tour and Knifedge Production Manager for Pippin at the Menier Chocolate Factory. Other projects for Knifedge include: Backbeat at the Duke of Yorks Theatre, Rocky Horror European Tour. Lucy is managing the production of 5 new projects for Knifedge for 2012.

Sherry joins the Knifedge production team from Crystal CG. Most of the Crystal London folk have headed to Rio, and but our sights have turned East to the People's Republic of China, and Sherry, herself a Chinese citizen is helping us. Her English is several million times better that our Mandarin at the moment, but we're learning fast!

 

Emily Davis is Knifedge's design purist. With a specific interest in information design Emily is aware that design should do more than just look good. Working on all the Quercus website and Crisis accounts Emily's creative work has contributed to a lot of award winning stuff!

With a keen interest in Art and Design from a very young age and a good educational background embellished with Theatre Studies and Photography, Emily studied Graphic Design at Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication.

As a producer, Lucy's attention to detail is unsurpassed. Her arrival has had an enormous impact at Knifedge as she carefully manages everything from the development of mobile apps to full theatrical content production.

Lucy trained in Music at Edinburgh University and in Composition for the Screen at the Royal College of Music, London. Her interest in broadcasting led her to complete an internship at the BBC, drawing her to a career in the world of media.

Svenja Frahm has studied Design and Communication in Germany, China and the UK. She is widely interested in cultures and languages, especially foreign characters and scripts.

Svenja has been working as a Creative Director, Designer and Animator in London since she moved here in 2008. She worked on a wide range of projects including TV Commercials and Channel branding, title sequences and Concert backgrounds.

Over the past year and a half she developed a strong interest and expertise in projection mapping techniques which also led her to realise her first project with Knifedge in Kuwait in 2011.

Ramon has worked in digital development for more than 20 years. Ramon is in charge of Knifedge's team of developers building websites mobile apps and making sure everything we do pops up at the top of all the search engines.

He is also an expert in e-learning, speaks fluent Spanish and can spot the best espresso from a distance of 200 yards.

Aaron Trinder has worked in the film, broadcast, theatre, music and commercials industry's since the mid 90s. Originally a Theatre and Film graduate (from Birmingham Univ) and long time internationally touring electronic musician and VJ, Aaron could be described as a bit of a polymath.

He's worked in motion design, animation, pop promos, concert visuals, film making and VFX across a vast client list including Nokia, the BBC, Channel 4 and 5, BT, Arctic Monkeys etc Aaron’s recent projects include 6 months working as VFX supervisor and main title designer for the feature film "Cleanskin" (Warner Bros), directing corporate films for BT, and an assortment of broadcast titles, graphics and animation projects for top london based motion design agencies. Building from his music, theatre, VJ and broadcast backgrounds he also has a strong interest in live interactive and generative work. Cementing a long standing relationship with Knifedge, Aaron has recently collaborated on 2 prestigious theatre projects (Backbeat, Pippin) and created animated content for the Snow Patrol world tour.

Tom Munday is an animator and a motion graphics designer.

Earlier this year, Tom led a team of designers in creating 2D projection content for American singer/songwriter Josh Groban’s "Straight To You" multi-arena tour of the USA.  He recently worked with Madame Tussauds in creating onsite graphics and interactive displays for Madame Tussauds London, Washington, Bangkok, LA, New York and Berlin.

Tom has also worked extensively with the Red Cross on a range of projects including all video projections at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham for their internal awards show for the last 4 years, graphics for a range of campaigns and entire animated videos for education and fundraising.

Television credits include the title sequence for BBC1 documentary ‘From Woolies to Wellies’, graphics for major BBC2 documentary series ‘The Story of Science’, titles and graphics for the BBC4 documentary ‘Adventures for Boys’ and titles, graphics and format design for Film4’s movie review show, ‘Movie Rush’.

Theresa Bampton-Clare looks after money in and out (don't upset her!).

Following a varied career, including working in the print design department at Saatchi & Saatchi, managing an intercollegiate orchestra, touring with classical ensembles and world music bands, being the fundraiser for a charity and managing a service for adolescent mental health, Theresa Bampton-Clare has worked with Knifedge since its inception.Together with Jonathan Brigden, she developed The Orchestra project, linking classical musicians with DJs, producers and hip-hop artists, touring both the UK and Europe with the support of the British Council and sponsorship.

Louise is an administrator and receptionist at Knifedge. She supports the team by ensuring the smooth running of the office and making sure everyone is happy, especially Theresa.

Louise has had a varied career so far, after graduating with from the University of Edinburgh with a Music degree she worked as a Nursing Assistant on a Psychiatric ward and then ventured off to Thailand to work as a Nursery Teacher for two years. She is not afraid of hard work or people.

In her spare time she enjoys knitting, playing the piano, illustrating and refurbishing dolls houses.

James is more commonly referred to as ‘Miracle Man’ at Knifedge Towers. He embraces our multi-platform information technology infrastructure, hates Macs (but owns one!) and is slowly but surely populating the organisation with PC workstations and Linux Servers (which he allows Macs to communicate with) and any device not Apple related.

James is proud of his French family connections returning from trips on the continent with honey … bee-keeping is in the family you know.

When not logging into Knifedge systems remotely and rescuing a render, James can be found at all the hip nightclubs in Staines or in his bedroom gaming, the latter is his first love. In any spare time remaining James is devouring programming languages, C++ is his current obsession.

James has allergies to many food stuffs nuts, raw vegetables and chicken (of any form) are all on the list, but such is his value to Knifedge we forego all of these in the workplace. He's also 6'7" tall so no-one at Knifedge dares mess with him.