This is The Clarified Company.

Making digital work, for everyone.

Strategic and creative consultancy for organisations, brands and businesses.

This is Clarified

Clarified is the brainchild of Gareth K Thomas.

The former founder of a successful tech start up, Gareth now offers strategic creative consultancy to help organisations, brands and businesses do better with digital. He is also a foster parent to three amazing children – and has a deep interest in child psychology.

The statements below outline Clarified’s ethos. A line in the sand. A set of guiding principles. A reason for being. Thanks for visiting.

The Manifesto

15% of UK children are estimated to be neurodiverse.1 31% experience psychological trauma in childhood.2 Designing for the common denominator is exclusive. Let’s start from a place that’s trauma-informed and neurodiversity-aware. Let’s drive a society that’s more integrated. More compassionate. More understanding.

1. The University of Edinburgh: Support for neurodiversity
2. PACEs Connection: How many children experience trauma and PTSD UK
Creativity is magical. It deserves a healthy seedbed. Yet classrooms normalise a world with ‘right’ answers and ‘wrong’ answers. Expressing ideas that deviate from the mainstream becomes socially risky. This cannot be right. And it isn’t.
We’re born with a natural inclination to learn. We lose it through coercive teaching. It’s not fun to be forced to learn about a topic you have no interest in. In this way, children begin to demonise the very concept of learning.
We have the world’s knowledge at our fingertips. Following curiosity beats following a curriculum. Children should be guided to delve into topics that excite them – and digital experiences should open the door. Imagine the benefits to society if every child left school with their own unique skillset.
The digital world can transform person-to-person tuition. Instead of learning from the best person within ten miles of your home, you can learn from the best people on the planet – on any topic. Digital should be revolutionising education. But schools are teaching children the same way they have for decades.
Try to disrupt the status quo; you will soon hit resistance. Your impassioned belief in a better way will be cast off as ‘unreasonable’ by others. Your quest for progress will make some people defensive. Entrenched. Paranoid. Yet the status quo isn’t working. We are failing children in schools. We are failing children in care. If novel ideas are unreasonable, so be it.
Human connection is a precursor of happiness, learning and progress. Connection should be baked into digital experience. For all of us.
In the tribes of our forebearers, children were raised by the collective. The need to feel a sense of belonging is stitched into our social DNA – unlocking self-confidence, creativity and emotional awareness. Belonging allows our identities to bloom.
Free play is fundamental to happiness. Cognitive growth. New ideas. Yet children’s time is more structured than ever before. They spend less time disappearing into unboundaried imagination. And that has been linked with reduced self-awareness, increased anxiety and depression.3 Embrace environments that encourage play.

3. Psychology Today: The Decline of Play and Rise in Children's Mental Disorders
If you change the environment, you can change the behaviour. We know this. If you are creating a platform for children, involve them in the design process. Because if a child is struggling, it’s usually the environment that needs to change. Not the child.
In a knowledge economy, we are paid to think. In a creative economy, we are paid to create. A rested mind is integral to both. Yet here we are: in an epidemic of sleep deprivation. We need to rediscover the reverence of rest – and its rewards.
When you are young, you rarely know what life has in store. When you are older, you can look back and join the dots from one part of life to another. It’s okay to feel stuck sometimes. Keep learning new skills. Keep nourishing the brain. Find the next dot. You can connect them later.
The digital world is going to become more immersive. Let’s create environments where the digital world and the real world enhance one another. Meaningful life experiences cannot be fully outsourced to the digital world. But the digital world can make life more accessible, equitable and educational.

Who I work with

I have worked with Tate, NHS Wales, Learna Ltd and many more. As I learn more about child psychology, I want to use my digital skillset to specialise. Helping organisations, brands and businesses improve the lives of children and young people. Connecting with experts. Changing futures.
“Gareth's work for our website really helped us to focus on what we needed to redevelop to maximise the site's effect.”

Tracy Davis, Fetchify

“Gareth is a results driven, no nonsense, kind of a guy.”

Ross Tavendale, Type A Media

“Gareth's experience and approach, to what could be seen as the complex world of Conversion Rate Optimisation, is first class.”

Russell O'Sullivan, Digital Thrive

“Gareth's work is as delightful as he is.”

Saul Johnstone, 11:FiftyNine

“Gareth was super generous with his time and balanced practical solutions, alongside making us think about the bigger picture.”

Liam Darbon, Tate

Why me?

Because my skillset is unique.

The journey begins at the turn of the millennium. I taught myself to design and develop websites – aged 14. Once I realised I could earn money from it, I started Warehouse Media. We won a few awards. In 2007 I co-founded the tech start up Reserve – an online booking and holiday let management platform. Within two years we were processing millions of pounds of bookings per annum.

Flash forward five years to 2012. Spurred by the Games Makers that contributed to the London Olympics, I wanted to devote time to volunteering – and started working with children. I was struck by the rich mix of personalities. How children could be so different outside school. It unlocked an urgent hunger to learn about child psychology.

Today I have keen understanding of neurodivergence in children. The stress response. The Discover-Defend axis. I am also the proud foster parent of three amazing kids. My ambition is to connect with others to improve children’s lives through digital projects. And I have a unique skillset to make it happen.

Understanding

Thinking

Doing

Testing

Training

What do I do?

Digital. Creatively.

Creativity means different things to different people. For me it’s about having the curiosity to see a problem without expectations. Without pre-judging the best route to the desired result. Forging the path is a journey I take with a vast digital toolkit. And a close network of specialist consultants. For all kinds of projects, for all kinds of clients.

Understanding

Customer research

Coproduction

Understanding behaviour

Analytics

Thinking

Digital strategy

Marketing strategy

Idea generation and exploration

Workshops

Behaviour design

UX

Creative solutions

Doing

Prototyping

Website design and development

No/low code solutions

Email marketing

UI design/creation

Automation

Testing

Conversion rate optimisation

A/B testing

Usability research

Heatmaps

Feedback systems

Training

On all of the above