Natalie Knowles
Natalie Knowles is a Commercial Content writer for What’s The Best, Take A Break Pets, Yours, Modern Gardens, and A Modern Kitchen.
Natalie joined Bauer in 2022 following four years with regional newspaper and magazine publisher Archant.
Before moving into journalism and lifestyle publications, Natalie worked in educational publishing in London for seven years. Her roles include Graphic Designer, Information Designer, Website Management, and Copywriter. And way back – before all that – Natalie began her computer-based career at a digital printing house doing file preparation and designing page layouts for photobooks.
In short, she knows her way around the back end of a website and is an expert in illustration, graphic design, and photo editing software. Whilst Adobe Creative Suite has been her bread-and-butter, Natalie enjoys tinkering with free apps in her spare time, particularly editing films and creating digital artwork for her Cyberpunk odyssey: Flashboy Max: Superking and the Quest for Pandora.
Natalie has a BA (Hons) in Film & American Studies, a PGCE in English teaching, and an MA in Sequential Design & Illustration. Movies are an enduring passion and Natalie loves to discuss them in a film club. One of her life highlights was seeing a screening of Snowpiercer, introduced in person by Mark Kermode.
After years of living on the Heathrow flight path and negotiating the delayed trains at Waterloo, Natalie returned to her home county of Norfolk. But that doesn't mean she's slowing down. Natalie got into film extra work and appeared in Danny Boyle's Yesterday as a music journalist. She also regularly exhibits with local contemporary art groups in unusual venues around Norwich. When she’s having a day off, Natalie is on her X-Box replaying Final Fantasy VII or a bit of Assassin’s Creed.
As a product tester, Natalie will take on appliances large and small. In her product reviews, she is delighted to pick apart the features and explain the benefits in an engaging way. She is also interested in how much white goods and kitchen gadgets cost to run. In addition, Natalie is on a mission to promote Sustainability and applauds brands doing something about their carbon footprint and recyclability.
Natalie is also a magpie for slick information design and user experience. It makes her happy to see synergy across a brand’s physical and virtual presence. Her favourite brands for this are currently Nespresso and Samsung. You can read more in detail in Natalie’s listicles, how-to guides and product reviews.
With meticulous attention to detail, Natalie's areas of expertise are:
Kitchen appliances
Image editing software
Digital printing
Personalised merch
Pixel art and retro gaming
Natalie's top buying tips:
• While some of us are living our best second lives in the virtual world, when it comes to purchasing appliances for the home go and see what they look like for real or at least do some careful measuring up. That 95-inch Samsung TV may look dinky on the screen, but can you get it up three flights of stairs into a studio flat?
• Free trials before you buy! If you’re interested in getting into content creation, try the software out before you take on a subscription. Also, by using a combination of free apps, often you can achieve amazing results.
• On kitchen gadgets, yes please to that coffee machine, SodaStream, plant milk maker, and air fryer – just consider how much worktop space is available and how much you will use these wonderful appliances. In a small kitchen, it can be a juggling act for space and short power cables introduce the faff of extension cables….
Should you choose to find out more about Natalie's creative projects you can visit natalieknowlesart.com or follow her @flashboymax or @natalieknowlesart Instagram.
