Chris Byrne

Lead Designer and Head of Web

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Chris Byrne

Our Lead Designer and Head of Web. Has his fingers in many creative pies. Mmm, pie. Chris’ favourite pie is steak and ale. Is a human dustbin that refuses to leave a crumb on any plate in his vicinity. Will crumble to ashes if you even think of showing him a stock image. Loves Figma more than his own child.

Chris manages one other designer and two developers. He is instrumental in setting the creative direction of almost all of our projects. He’s also a die-hard Evertonian, but we won’t hold that against him. They’ve caused him much more trauma than we ever could.

Q&A

How did you end up working in design and digital?

I suppose like many other people in this industry, I spent the vast majority of my teens and early 20s indoors either gaming or trying to design websites and graphics for MySpace. Remember that? I really miss Tom’s face.

Anyway, after I left uni (the less said about that, the better), my Dad helped me land a freelance job to build a website for his friend’s business. This was based on reputation alone as I had no portfolio worth speaking of – despite the years spent creating MySpace layouts. Looking back now, it was absolutely awful but it got my foot in the door and I’ve not looked back since! Thanks Dad!

Favourite project or client you've worked on at Kootoo?

So far? CyberOff, an off-the-wall cyber security training outfit. The brand is so much fun to work with, and in my humble opinion, I smashed the designs out of the park (brushes imaginary dust from shoulders). They’ve been breath of fresh air to work with and I look forward to doing more work together in future.

Tell us something we wouldn’t know about you?

My son and my best mate’s son were born on the same day, in the same hospital, within hours of each other. Weird eh?!

Oh, and… on my 29th birthday I saw Alter Bridge at the Manchester Arena – paid for a guitar clinic, VIP meet & greet tickets, the works. As it was my birthday, during soundcheck Mark Tremonti gave me his guitar to play on stage, through the PA and everything. A day I’ll never forget*

*Probably doesn’t beat the birth of my son though. Just about… 👀

Who would be your dream client to work with?

Personally, doing something for Everton would be ace! I’ve been an Evertonian for 30+ years (yes, I’m really old now), so working on a project with them would blow my mind. Make it happen Ian!

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