When you get a new project from Blue Q, how do you begin? What’s the starting point?

I love it when a design has to fit a specific product, so working on Blue Q things is so fun for me! First of all, I think about how the design relates to that product and how it will be seen on a shelf in a store. I usually work my designs out using paper cutouts and line drawings that I scan in and then arrange with Photoshop. 

What was your favorite thing to draw as a child? Why did that lodge in your head? 

I grew up near where David Hockney did, and as a kid I used to go to a local gallery that showed his work to study closely how he drew noses and ears.

What’s your biggest art inspiration? This may not be visual. Like, anything!

I’m inspired by really normal, everyday stuff, stuff that people tend to overlook. Like handwritten signs in shops or the way people walk their dogs. I soak up what I see around me then work it into my own dreamworld where men still wear suits and hats and cars are like boxes on wheels.

“My mum is my sounding board.”

Where do you work? What’s your workspace like? Any objects you’ve had a long time? 

I work in our home, which is a renovated cotton mill in Yorkshire. I’ve completely surrounded my desk with my all-time most favorite and inspirational objects, from cans of sardines brought back from Portugal to my collection of glass Eiffel Towers. (I love the Eiffel Tower).

How does creativity run in your family, even if it’s not design-related?

We’re all artists, back as far as we can remember. There was no option for me to be anything but one, really.