Creative strategist · West Sussex

See it clearly.
Then make it work.

We look at your business the way a painter looks at a canvas: the whole thing, until we can both see what's really going on. Then we make it clear enough to act on, and build what fixes it together.

Live now

A gardening firm in West Sussex runs its team of around sixteen on an app I designed and built. It's used every working day.

In progress

The name, strategy and launch plan for a garden design start-up. Launching 2027.

Most owners know something's off. They're usually looking at the wrong part of it. The WhatsApp chaos is really a week that only exists in one person's head. The website that isn't working is really a message trying to talk to four audiences at once.

So we don't decide the answer before we understand the problem. Sometimes it's an app. Sometimes it's a name, a clearer message, or a proposal that finally says what you mean. Whatever it is, you'll be able to see it, click through it and argue with it. You won't get a forty-page report.

You know your business. I bring distance and a different way of seeing.

I've run my own business since 2006, so I know where the time goes. I'm a designer and painter by training, not an engineer. I work with AI as a working partner, which lets me move faster on the legwork so more of our time goes on the thinking.

It starts with your words

I don't turn up with a diagnosis. You know your business better than anyone. My job is to ask the questions that help you say what's really going on.

We make it visible together

Maps, explorers, prototypes, proposals written in your words. Things we can both point at in a meeting. When everyone sees the same picture, decisions get made.

We build it, and I stay close

Apps, sites, brands, systems, shaped with you as we go. The first version is never the last, and your team will say what it needs once they're using it.

Work

Two jobs. Very different. Same way of seeing.

The first client asked for help with his rota. A few months later he asked me to help launch a completely different business. That second call says more about how we worked together than anything I could write here.

Operations · designed and built

A gardening firm, West Sussex

Live · in daily use

What we saw

The problem wasn't WhatsApp. It was that the whole week lived in the owner's head, and every Sunday night he rebuilt it by hand for sixteen people.

What we made

A scheduling app, designed around how the team already worked: a rota, a phone view for every person on site, holiday and sick tracking, materials and costs, an equipment log and a monthly export to Xero.

What changed

Everyone has their day on their phone. Holidays add up by themselves. Invoices go out from the same place the work was booked.

Strategy · naming · brand · launch

A garden design start-up

In progress · launching 2027

What we saw

A strong idea being pulled in several directions: a mission, a price point, a design system and four quite different audiences, all competing for the first sentence.

What we made

A naming audit that led to a new name. An interactive strategy explorer that sets out who they're talking to and what each audience needs to hear first. A logo review, the full proposal, and the scope for the website and the customer journey behind it.

Why it matters

The founders can now make decisions against one clear picture, instead of re-arguing the message every time someone new joins the conversation.

A cost comparison you can click

An interactive page comparing your own app with an off-the-shelf subscription, worked out for a firm of a given size. It answers the question before the owner has to ask it.

Proposals in your own words

Guided questions first, then a proposal built from what the client actually said, split into phases they can pick from. Nobody has to translate it.

Try it

Have a go. Nothing here is real.

This is the core every build starts from: rota, clients, staff, time off and the phone your team carries. Switch between the gardening and cleaning versions to see the same app set up for two different businesses.

Open full screen ↗

01 · Book a jobTap an empty cell on the rota and pick a client.

02 · Ask for a day offSwitch to the staff phone and request time off.

03 · Approve itBack in the office, go to Staff & time off. The holiday count updates.

04 · Send a messageMessage the team, then check the bell on the phone.

How we work

Look properly. Then say it plainly.

Painting teaches you to keep looking until you can see what's wrong with the whole picture, not just the corner you've been staring at. Businesses are the same. The problem people walk in with is rarely the one that's costing them.

Once I can see it, the job is to make it clear to everyone else. That might mean a map of how the week really runs, an explorer the founders can click through together, or a working prototype on the owner's phone. Then we build the thing that fixes it.

You bring the knowledge of your business. I bring a different way of seeing. We make it work together.

What actually happens

01

You talk, I listen

A conversation about how things actually run, not a brief. I'll ask more than you expect and say less than you expect.

02

We find the real problem

Usually one layer down from the one you described. I'll tell you what I think it is and why, and you can argue with me.

03

We make it visible

Something you can click, hold or put on the table: a map, an explorer, a prototype, a proposal in your words. Everyone sees the same picture.

04

We build what fixes it

An app, a name, a message, a site, a system. Whatever the problem needs, and nothing it doesn't.

05

I stay close

Things change once people use them. A care plan keeps software looked after, and I'd rather hear what's not working than find out you've stopped using it.

Working with AI

A working partner, not the author

I work with AI every day as a working partner. It takes on the legwork, such as research, first drafts and much of the build, so more of our time goes on the thinking and the decisions.

I've shaped my own staff of AI assistants, built from conversations with people I respect, people who challenge me. I set them up to push back rather than agree. A lot of my work has been argued with before it ever reaches you.

The judgement stays with people: yours about your business, mine about what I see.

If we build software together

Who owns my data?

You do. It sits in its own separate database, set up for your business alone, and you can export it whenever you like.

Where is it hosted?

On established cloud services built for this kind of app. You don't have a server in a cupboard, and nobody's laptop needs to be switched on for it to work.

Ways in

Three ways in. Pick the one that fits the problem.

Each one is priced up front and has a clear end point. If you need more than one, they join up. And if the honest answer is that you need none of them, I'll say so on the first call.

Strategy · two to three weeks

See it clearly

For when you know something's off but can't put your finger on it. I listen, find the real problem and give you a clear picture to decide from.

Conversations with you and the people doing the work
A map of how things actually run
The real problem, named plainly
A visual you can click through or share, not a report

Fixed price · agreed up front

Brand · launch

Say it clearly

For a new business, or an existing one whose message has drifted. The name, the story, who it's for, and the website that carries it.

Naming and positioning
A clear message for each audience
Brand direction and review
Website and customer journey, scoped and built

Priced per project · scoped after a first call

Build · about five weeks

Make it work

Your own app for running the team's week, starting from a core already in daily use and set up around how you work.

Rota, staff phones, holiday and sick tracking
Clients, site notes and job history
Materials, costs and export to Xero
Your own database. Your data stays yours.

£7,500 + £95 a month care plan

Getting your team on board: hands-on sessions so everyone, including the sceptics, is confident with whatever we've made. Priced with the project.

Who this suits

Owners who've built something good that's started running them. Short on time rather than money. They care about who they work with, not just what it costs.

Who it doesn't

Anyone who wants a chatbot just to have one. Anyone who wants the answer before I've heard the problem. Anyone who needs it finished by Friday.

How it usually starts

A thirty-minute call where you tell me what's going on. No deck. I'll say whether I can help, and if I can't, I'll usually know who can.

Emma Hurst in a black floral shirt, in front of a hand-dyed orange and yellow backdrop

Why a painter

I still make things by hand

I'm a working painter, trained in graphic design and illustration, with years spent in artists' studios and a practice that's still going. That isn't a charming detail on the side. It's why I see problems the way I do, and why what I make looks and feels the way it does.

Most business software is built by people who never have to use it. You can tell. Painting teaches you to look at something until it's right, not until it technically works. That's the standard I hold a rota screen to.

It also means I'm curious rather than technical for its own sake. I'm not an engineer explaining down at you. I'm someone who learned to build these things properly because I wanted to, and I enjoy it.

The route here

Training

Graphic design & illustration: where I learned clarity is a craft, not a personality trait.

Commercial

Luxury brands: communicating quality to people who can tell the difference.

Own business

Moozi Creative Ltd: running a design studio, and learning what a small business can actually absorb.

Painting

Full-time artist: the first love, and still the practice.

Studios

Assistant to established artists: practice seen from inside, not described from outside.

Postgraduate

MA Fine Art, Distinction: where the painting practice got serious, and so did the thinking behind it.

Goodwood

Project manager, Future Lab: bringing emerging technology to life with designers and founders at Festival of Speed.

West Dean

Short course programmer (craft), West Dean College: recruiting tutors and shaping the courses they teach.

AI

AI for Business, Level 4, Distinction: a three-month course with TechNative and AI Potential.

Now

Creative strategist, Moozi Creative Ltd: strategy, brands and working software for small businesses.

Business owner since 2006

Running Moozi Creative Ltd taught me what a small business can actually absorb, where the time goes, and why the admin grows faster than the business.

What I won't claim

That I'll have the answer on the first call. That software fixes a business that doesn't know how it wants to work. That a good name can rescue a weak idea. If I overclaim now, you'll stop trusting the parts that are true.

Emma on a beach in a cap and sunglasses, sea behind her

Outside work

I'll try anything once

Sport, and the more extreme the better. If someone suggests something that sounds slightly unwise, I'm usually already in.

One caveat: not caving.

It's the same instinct I bring to a new client: curious, up for it, and happy to be out of my depth for a while, because that's usually where the good ideas are.

Selected work

The studio

Unstretched paintings made by staining raw canvas and linen with pigment, then folding and compressing them. Enquiries and studio visits welcome.

Square painting in deep teal and blue, divided by folded creases into a nine-part grid with lighter triangles in the corners. Erasure No.7, 2019, by Emma Hurst. — **Erasure No.7**Pigments and gesso on canvas, 140 × 140 cm, 2019

Square painting in plum and magenta, a nine-part grid of folded creases with bright pink triangular corners. Erasure No.2, 2019, by Emma Hurst. — **Erasure No.2**Pigments and gesso on canvas, 150 × 150 cm, 2019

Turquoise linen crumpled and stained, dark pigment gathered in the creases like a map of the folds. Erasure No.3, 2022, by Emma Hurst. — **Erasure No.3**Pigments and gesso on linen, 71 × 71 cm, 2022

Horizontal bands of black and charcoal grey across a square canvas, with faint diagonal fold lines. Erasure No.10, 2021, by Emma Hurst. — **Erasure No.10**Pigments and gesso on canvas, 120 × 120 cm, 2021

Long unstretched canvas drops in red, navy, grey and ochre hanging from ceiling to floor in a white gallery. Eutopia, 2019, by Emma Hurst. — **Eutopia**Installation, dimensions variable, 2019

Large vermilion canvas folded into a free-standing tent-like structure on a gallery floor. Canvas Structure, 2019, by Emma Hurst. — **Canvas Structure**2019

Stained canvases in deep red, blue and magenta suspended and twisted through the roof space of a timber barn. Flight, 2021, by Emma Hurst. — **Flight**Installation, dimensions variable, 2021

Three canvas panels in green, turquoise and orange-red stretched between the pillars of a barn undercroft at South Stoke. Untitled (Idyll), 2024, by Emma Hurst. — **Untitled (Idyll)**Pigment dye and gesso on canvas, Three panels, dimensions variable, 2024

A single length of navy and deep red canvas twisted as it falls from ceiling to floor in a white room. Untitled, 2019, by Emma Hurst. — **Untitled**2019

Square canvas of alternating black and grey horizontal bands with faint diagonal creases. Untitled, 2019, by Emma Hurst. — **Untitled**2019

A vertical band of stained pink canvas set on a deep navy ground. Untitled, 2020, by Emma Hurst. — **Untitled**2020

Strips of lilac-pink canvas woven into a loose lattice, draped over a fringed navy panel. Untitled, 2020, by Emma Hurst. — **Untitled**2020

Rows of pale cloud-like shapes lifted out of a deep indigo ground above a dark horizon band. Untitled, 2022, by Emma Hurst. — **Untitled**2022

Deep blue square canvas with folded diagonals forming a large X and a central grid. Untitled, 2022, by Emma Hurst. — **Untitled**2022

A soft blue square floating on a smoky grey ground. Untitled, 2020, by Emma Hurst. — **Untitled**2020

Collage of stained canvas planes in red, yellow, green and magenta under a translucent pale sheet. Untitled, 2025, by Emma Hurst. — **Untitled**2025

Collage of pieced canvas in coral, green, cream and maroon forming a large V shape. Untitled, 2025, by Emma Hurst. — **Untitled**2025

Full catalogue, exhibitions and CV →

The practice

Still the first love

“I begin a piece by choosing its dimensions, tearing the material, breaking through its manufactured form. I lay it on the ground, mix my pigments and apply it with a big paintbrush. I may add gesso to the mix depending on the colour or stiffness I want the piece to form into. I make my folds, compress the material and let it dry.”

“My painting process is labour intensive, committed and performative. I allow the paint to puddle and pool, soak into the surface and through to the underside, staining each fibre as I move over the surface.”

“Working directly in response to place, to architecture and surrounding landscapes, my installations are combinations of new works and selected paintings from my increasing library.”

I know a piece is done when it unifies something in my mind and body and triggers my senses with excitement.

Practical

Available work

The full catalogue: every work, with sizes and materials.

Galleries

Zimmer Stewart and Gallery 57: both in Arundel.

Studio visits

Book a time: Arundel, West Sussex.

Recent

South Stoke Idyll, 2024: with Zimmer Stewart Gallery, South Stoke Barn.