Brand & identity studies
Logo routes, marks, visual systems, type treatments and early identity exploration that sits behind finished public-facing work.
Software engineering · Frontend · Digital product
Digital products built to work, last and make sense.
I’m Phil Forster, a software engineering manager, frontend developer and digital product specialist based in Elgin, Scotland. My work ranges from client websites and volunteer systems to museum interactives, local-first tools and the project hubs that connect them.
- Approach
- Clear interfaces, careful data handling and maintainable builds
- Perspective
- Engineering leadership shaped by hands-on delivery
- Location
- Elgin, Scotland · Remote capable
Selected work
Projects that show the work in practice
Project ecosystem
Follow the work beyond the portfolio
The project hubs gather the broader body of work around clear themes: client sites, productivity tools, creative experiments, game-led projects, learning resources and utility projects. Each hub opens in a new browser tab, giving related projects enough space to show their context and development over time.
Working principles
The habits behind the work
Leadership feedback
Trusted to steady teams and deliver
“Thrown into the deep end, Phil not only swam but prospered. He managed the team during the challenge of lockdown, helped engineers adjust to new processes, and maintained the legacy frontend.”
Portfolio
Selected work and the wider archive
This page brings together the work that best shows how I approach digital products: clear interfaces, practical systems, public websites and tools built around real tasks. The selected projects focus on finished outcomes, while the wider archive adds active builds, experiments and supporting studies. Together they show the range of problems I have worked through, the decisions behind them and how each piece developed from an initial need into something useful.
Featured
Six projects that show the range of the work
Project archive
The wider body of work
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Card and list views are available in .
Project ecosystem
The wider project ecosystem
The selected case studies show the main highlights. The hubs open up the broader body of work behind them: client websites, productivity systems, creative experiments, game-led projects, learning work and technical utilities. Each collection has its own focus, giving the work more room to show its range, context and development over time, from finished public projects to smaller ideas that shaped later builds.
Navigation model
A clear path from overview to evidence
- 01Portfolio
Establishes the professional focus, introduces the strongest work and provides a clear route into the wider project ecosystem.
- 02Project hub
Groups related systems by audience, purpose or working discipline, making connected projects easier to compare and explore.
- 03Individual project
Presents the live application, public website or detailed project route alongside the context needed to understand the working outcome.
- 04Development record
Preserves project logs and key decisions, showing how the work developed beyond its final presentation.
Directory
Explore the project hubs
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Wider context
A broader view of the work behind the highlights
The hubs show the range that sits beyond the selected case studies: client sites, operational tools, creative experiments, game-led projects, learning resources and technical utilities developed across different needs and levels of polish. Some projects are finished public work, others are prototypes, directories or records that capture how ideas were tested and refined. Seen together, they make the portfolio feel less like a handful of isolated outcomes and more like a connected body of practical, ongoing work. They also show the quieter parts of delivery: iteration, organisation, maintenance and the decisions that let a project keep developing after its first release.
Studio
Visual studies and creative work
Studio brings together image-led work outside the main application archive: identity studies, applied design, campaign pieces, interface mockups and game concepts. These records show how visual ideas are explored, tested and refined before becoming part of a finished experience. The focus is on direction, iteration and presentation, giving supporting creative work enough context to stand alongside the larger product case studies.
Structure
Where visual thinking becomes creative work
Print & applied design
Stationery, vouchers, clothing mockups and customer-facing brand material where the outcome is a practical visual asset.
Posters & campaigns
Recruitment posters, exhibit graphics and event material shaped around clear communication and visual hierarchy.
Game & concept visuals
Arcade assets, atmospheric experiments, game-page imagery and visual directions that support creative or game-led projects.
Studio archive
Image-led records from the visual archive
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Experience
Leadership and digital delivery
My career has moved from safety-critical Royal Air Force work, through hands-on frontend delivery, into engineering leadership and digital product ownership. Across those roles, the common thread is dependable delivery: understanding risk, supporting people and keeping useful systems moving through technical and organisational change. It is a route shaped as much by operational responsibility and team support as by the technology itself.
Earlier career · Royal Air Force
Technical responsibility in safety-critical operational service
RAF Survival Equipment was a specialist technical trade built around kit aircrew trusted with their lives: parachutes, liferafts, life jackets, oxygen masks, emergency beacons and survival packs. I inspected, repaired, tested, packed, recorded and managed that equipment, then moved into instruction and specialist trade duties covering briefings, demonstrations, sea-drill training, technical publications, compliance and coordination with aircrew and other RAF trades. It was technical work, teaching work and operational readiness work at the same time, carried into deployed service alongside allied forces where the paperwork, the process and the final check all had to stand up.
The Football Pools · Technical lead and engineering manager
Leading delivery while keeping live systems steady
At The Football Pools I moved from hands-on frontend delivery into technical leadership and engineering management. The role sat between live products, legacy constraints, team support and business change: keeping services moving, helping engineers through process shifts, translating risk for stakeholders and making practical decisions when the ideal technical answer was not available.
- Supported frontend engineers through changing delivery processes, remote work and legacy platform demands.
- Balanced visible product change against maintainability, technical debt and operational stability.
- Turned unclear requirements and constraints into workable frontend delivery plans.
Independent, client and community work · Current portfolio
Practical ownership across sites, tools and community systems
My current portfolio brings together client work, independent tools, project hubs and volunteer or charity systems. I often carry work from early problem definition through to handover: requirements, structure, interface design, copy, frontend implementation, PHP and JavaScript, deployment, documentation and ongoing maintenance. The aim is practical software that makes a real task clearer, easier to manage and robust enough for the people who inherit it.
Qualifications and training
Formal study supported by continual learning
View additional professional and online training
About
Reliability, clarity and useful design
I am a former Royal Air Force Survival Equipment Fitter turned software engineering manager, frontend developer and digital product specialist. That route shaped a practical approach built around accountability, clear decisions and dependable handover. I am most useful where technical implementation, visual communication and ongoing maintenance need to work together. The result should remain useful, clear and manageable after handover.
I’m Phil Forster—a former Royal Air Force Survival Equipment Fitter turned software engineering manager, frontend developer and digital product specialist.
My RAF background taught me to treat detail, safety and accountability as operating requirements. That mindset now informs how I build software: understand the task, identify the risks, document the decisions and deliver something people can rely on.
After completing degrees in Interactive Media and Computing, I moved through hands-on development into technical leadership and software engineering management. I have worked across commercial products, education, heritage and community organisations, often bridging the gap between technical implementation and clear visual communication.
Alongside professional work, I support Morayvia, a volunteer-run aviation museum in Scotland. That work has included operational software, interactive displays, digital infrastructure, branding and exhibit design—practical systems built around the needs of volunteers and visitors.
I am usually most useful where a project needs someone to connect several parts of the problem rather than only deliver one narrow task. That might mean turning a loose brief into a working interface, improving an existing workflow, organising content, simplifying maintenance, or making sure a system still makes sense after the first launch.
The common thread is practical ownership. I care about the visible interface, but also the parts around it: the wording, the data, the hosting, the admin route, the update process and the person who has to come back to it later. A good build should feel understandable on day one and still be manageable when content, users or priorities change.
I work best where design, engineering and operational needs are considered together. I am comfortable moving between detailed implementation and broader delivery questions, helping teams make trade-offs visible, keep decisions grounded and leave behind systems that are easier to understand than they were at the start. That balance of hands-on craft and leadership is the direction I continue to develop. It keeps delivery connected to the people building the system and those who rely on it.
Professional values
Precision without unnecessary complexity
These are the habits I try to carry through the work: keep the system understandable, make the important paths dependable, and avoid adding complexity unless it genuinely earns its place.
Accountable decisions
Practical delivery
Reliable systems
Maintainable builds
Accessible interfaces
Human-centred workflows
Clear communication
Documented choices
Traceable changes
Secure foundations
Private by design
Adaptable thinking
Contact
Start a useful conversation
If something in this portfolio connects with a role, a team or a challenge you are working through, get in touch. I am open to conversations about engineering leadership, frontend and product delivery, technical collaboration, and work where clarity and maintainability matter. A little context about what prompted the message is enough; we can decide whether there is a useful next step from there.