Todd Elliott Padwick is the Founder of multi-award-winning Digital Creative agency, Function & Form, based in London.
Son of late furniture designer and sculptor, Steuart Padwick, and renowned writer and senior movement lecturer at Central School of Speech and Drama, Vanessa Ewan; he was born into creativity. As a child, Todd Padwick demonstrated strong abilities in fine art, but found the lack of purpose in its practice unappealing. So, instead, chose his path in Graphic Design.
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After completing a Foundation course in Graphic Design at the London College of Communication, followed by a BA (Hons) at the Arts Institute Bournemouth, Todd Padwick began his career in print and advertising. Taking a graphic design role at London-based agency, Clinic, he honed his skills, working with the likes of Barclays, Network Rail, Madame Tussauds, Arsenal FC, Premier League, Sky and Sega.
With a growing ambition, Todd Padwick familiarised himself with principles from other mediums of design - from the balance of proportion and space in architecture, to ergonomics in product design. This lead him to put increased emphasis on establishing function before form, and less on decoration.
Despite enjoying the craft of print, by the early 2010s, a fascination with the web, began to grow. New technologies emerged, enabling new levels of interactivity, and Todd Padwick was determined to be a part of it. Dedicating his free time to learning to code, Todd Padwick began moonlighting as a freelance Web designer/developer, and eventually, in 2013, took an interaction design role at McCann.
Expecting to be able to harness his coding and design skills on a broader scale, Todd Padwick was quickly disappointed. At that time, this combination of skills was rare, and simply didn’t fit into existing agency workflow: at that time, web designers were mocking up static visuals in Photoshop, and handing them over to a separate team of web developers to code. Dispirited, Todd Padwick was convinced there was a better way, where code was seen as a creative tool.
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Determined to find a place where his combination of skills was encouraged, he travelled the world for two years, freelancing from agency to agency in the hope of finding the right fit. Despite being offered a multitude of permanent roles as either a web developer or web designer, none supported both. So, in 2015, Todd Padwick launched an agency of his own...
Function & Form is an agency dedicated to creating interactive experiences and branding that puts strategy and purpose first. And of course, it is one, where blending the line between design and code is actively encouraged.
Last update 28 July 2023