Design projects, influences and process notes.
The NHS appointment letter is one of the most consequential pieces of public typography most of us receive, yet it is rarely discussed as design. A close reading of its paper, hierarchy, directions and tone suggests a set of priorities that studio portfolios would do well to borrow.
A close study of collected British takeaway leaflets as a vernacular design genre — laminated colour, crowded hierarchy, borrowed typefaces and practical shortcuts. The menu is not made to be admired, but its methods of clarity, repetition and urgency offer useful lessons for a portfolio.
A small field study of three British carrier bags, read as vernacular design documents. The 10p charge stamp, the 'Bag for Life' promise and the 6pt recycled-content line along the gusset reveal what it means to design honestly for a second outing.
British wheelie bins accumulate council labels, house numbers, repair tape and improvised marker pen in a vernacular typographic system that is rarely designed and never curated. This field note proposes a way of reading that surface as civic evidence, domestic correction and accidental personalisation.
The British allotment is often treated as a retreat from professional life, yet its gates, sheds and seed packets form a coherent visual language built on use, repair and restraint. This article considers what the plot teaches about hierarchy, legibility and making do, and how those lessons might inform a more grounded design practice.
A practical method for reading the layered notices found in bus shelters and parish noticeboards as civic design rather than background clutter. The article sets out how to observe hierarchy, weatherproofing, trust and urgency, and how to photograph and catalogue such surfaces without reducing them to picturesque local colour.
A study of adapted telephone kiosks across British villages and high streets, treated not as nostalgia but as a live lesson in constraint-led design. The kiosk offers a fixed envelope, a civic threshold and a maintenance regime; what changes inside reveals how longevity is really achieved.
A walking survey of London’s commemorative plaques, read as a brief in restraint, siting and legibility. Process notes on making portfolio work that earns its place on the third or fourth encounter rather than the first.
A4 is so familiar that it often disappears from view, yet it remains the quiet framework behind council notices, parish newsletters, takeaway menus and studio proofs. This article treats the standard sheet as a design instrument, examining how its folds, margins and photocopy logic shape everyday British visual decisions.
A survey of ninety doorways on one British street, and what handles, knockers, letterboxes and bell pushes reveal about era, weather and the etiquette of arrival. The notes that follow are less a history of hardware than a set of instructions for designing the first point of contact between a home and the pavement.
A year of charity-shop browsing has produced a shelf that no algorithm could have assembled: 1970s Letraset catalogues, discarded annuals and local pamphlets. This essay sets out what those accidental references have taught me about influence, and offers a simple audit and brief-making exercise for designers who want to look closer to home.
A close reading of the layered flyers, handwritten notices and charity posters on a British village hall noticeboard, treated as an accidental information architecture. The board succeeds not through alignment but through overlap, repetition and improvisation.
Every studio keeps a shallow drawer in which judgement waits. This is a personal taxonomy of misprinted proofs, rejected swatches and paper scraps, sorted not for tidiness but for what they reveal about taste, hesitation and the quiet labour of editing.
British clients rarely ask for what they mean outright. This working glossary translates twelve familiar phrases — from ‘tidy’ to ‘a bit more oomph’ — into decisions about type, colour, spacing and materials, with notes from real briefs and a page you can adapt for your own conversations.
Waiting rooms are among the most honest interiors in Britain: they must inform without alarming, seat without ranking, and fill time without wasting it. This is a self-initiated study of one such room — and a modest proposal for the minutes before the appointment.
An opinion piece pushing back against the pressure to constantly refresh an online portfolio, especially for UK freelancers working in a fast-turnaround culture. It proposes a slower model of documenting work: fewer projects, deeper process notes and more honest evidence of how ideas evolve.
A process note on how feedback, constraints and correspondence shape design outcomes, drawing on annotated excerpts from recent UK commissions. The argument is simple: writing and design are part of the same craft, and the client email is often where the real creative decisions are made.
A process note on making colour decisions when the light is rarely decisive. Drawing on a recent identity project, it sets out practical tests for paper and screen that begin with the weather rather than the swatch book.
A year of returning to the same corner table with a sketchbook, and what repetition revealed about observation, routine and the quiet mechanics of design.
A walk to the studio offers a free lesson in lettering, colour and restraint. These six shopfronts show what the British high street still teaches — and what disappears when every fascia starts to look the same.