Learn to be a better designer from over 93 Global creatives

We’ve been interviewing your favourite designers to learn how they started, how they grow and what makes them successful

James Wood

James Wood

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? I remember it was in my later years of high school. We had an IT project to setup a database for a local business. I selected a local Golf Course and spent more time redesigning the crest and colour scheme than the...

Kady Sandel

Kady Sandel

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? I was 12 years old when I told my mom that I would like to “make a billboard.” At that time, she didn’t understand what I was talking about, so she asked me “Like… you want to be a construction person?” ? So, we dug...

Abb-d Taiyo

Abb-d Taiyo

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? I always had an element of creativity within me growing up. I loved exploration through music and expression and naturally excelled at subjects like art. There was a point that I realised traditional art, at least...

Nate Spees

Nate Spees

1. When did you realize you wanted to be a brand strategist/designer? For most of my life, I’ve been fascinated by building things - from legos to forts and all sorts of make-believe. Receiving a bootlegged copy of Photoshop and Illustrator (Sorry, Adobe!) was my...

Steve Waugh

Steve Waugh

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? I can’t ever remember there being an alternative to creating images in some form. I was always drawing or playing around with software as far back as Deluxe Paint. The idea of moving from still images to moving...

James Melia

James Melia

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? At school; I originally wanted to be a graphic designer, mainly because the industrial design industry is not that well represented in the education system. I knew that I wanted to be in the world of design as it...

Emily Penny

Emily Penny

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a brand strategist? I chose to study Fine Art and Art History at uni and while I loved it, my big learning was that I didn’t want to be an artist. Design looked more interesting and I landed a job in client services. A few...

Melanie Hubert-Crozet

Melanie Hubert-Crozet

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? Very early on actually! We got our first family computer when I was eight years old. I quickly discovered Publisher and I got hooked on creating my own booklets and flyers for amusement parks and travel agencies I...

Dan Mall

Dan Mall

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? I originally went to college to be an animator, but I quickly realized how tedious it was and how bad I was at it. Flipping through the course catalog for what else I could do, I found a handful of courses I liked...

Naeem Alvi

Naeem Alvi

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? I’m not a designer. I studied journalism at Falmouth University as I’ve always had a passion for creative writing. After a few years of working as a journalist, I decided I wanted to pursue a more creative...

Jo Barnard

Jo Barnard

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? I was fortunate to have Product Design taught at my school. I absolutely loved it and the teacher encouraged us to consider continuing it at university. Every single person in that class went on to do a design...

Stuart Lang

Stuart Lang

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? At school – when I was speaking to the career advisor and I realised that Art was the only subject I was unwilling to ever drop. From there, it was just a case of working out where I would end up within the creative...

Sydney Michuda

Sydney Michuda

1. When did you realize you wanted to be a designer? I had been interested in art from a young age but never felt truly at home in any specific field. In high school, I took a graphic design course and really fell in love with the subject. Later in...

Jamie Kelly

Jamie Kelly

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? I’ve always loved drawing and writing, being able to start with a blank piece of paper and create something unique has always excited me, and I’m a firm believer that no sketch or word is wasted,...

Malika Favre

Malika Favre

1. When did you realise you wanted to be an illustrator? Pretty late actually 😉 Though I have been drawing since I was a child, I first went on to study physics and mathematics and changed path at 19 to study Advertising and graphic design in Paris. After a BA I...

Dan Janssen

Dan Janssen

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? Grow up in San Diego and skating and surfing I always loved the skate, surf and snowboard industry art and design. I knew I wanted to work in that industry or at least do skateboard graphics or apparel.  2. How...

Andrew Dobbie

Andrew Dobbie

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? I was always creative as a child and lucky enough to have a mother that saw that in me and nurtured it further. I was also musical at school, playing guitar in bands etc. I initially thought that I’d either do that...

Ryan Tym

Ryan Tym

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? Looking back, even in Primary School, I had a real fascination with the layout and design of school projects. I loved finding interesting ways to set out things like summer diaries on my parent’s Amstrad. By the age...

Jamie Ellul

Jamie Ellul

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? I don’t think I really understood a designer’s role until I did my first year of my HND in 1999. Before that I didn’t want to be a designer – I just wanted to be creative. But I guess...

Nick Rees

Nick Rees

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? Honestly, I fell into design. I lost my father as a young boy and as a result, drove my mother mad. I was veering wildly off the rails but always had my love of art throughout. This manifested itself through...

Callum Lumsden

Callum Lumsden

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? I used to copy cartoons from comics (Micky Mouse, Yogi Bear, Fred Flintstone, Batman) when I was a kid. That became my introduction to drawing with pen and pencils. I then started to redesign where we lived in...

David Pearman

David Pearman

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? Perhaps unusually, at a very early age. I was already designing things like posters, flyers, and menus before I knew that it was a thing called design. I had always loved drawing and sketching. People used to ask me...

David Palmer

David Palmer

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? I’d love to say it was something dramatic and profound like a parting of the clouds, a shaft of golden light and a divine voice from above summoning me forth to be a designer. In fact, it was a more prosaic voice -...

Jamie Bridle

Jamie Bridle

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? Around four years old, believe it or not! I was fascinated with the covers of my parent's eclectic record collection from a really early age, and It soon became apparent to me that type and image was something to be...

Kirsty Minns

Kirsty Minns

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? I always loved Design and Technology at school and was lucky to have teachers who gave me room to experiment. At 14 I did work experience for a luxury brand’s marketing team, shadowing a very talented designer...

Tim Easley

Tim Easley

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? Quite late in life I think! I actually studied computer science, maths and physics at college, but had to drop out after a year due to financial issues. My first proper job was as a games tester, then I did various...

Jeremy Mura

Jeremy Mura

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? When I first started using photoshop back in highschool around 2009 I had this class called multimedia and it opened my eyes to the world of graphic design and also 3Ds max. I loved the whole ideas of designing and...

Martin Simpson

Martin Simpson

When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? As kids, my brother and I would spend hours drawing together, side by side at the dining room table. We imagined worlds, sweeping stories, scrawled across large rolls of paper with cheap wax crayon. I think our Mum...

Ian Anderson

Ian Anderson

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? I didn’t train to be a designer… I studied philosophy. I’m not sure I ever wanted to be a designer. My ambition is to communicate, to provoke dialogue, to question answers on my behalf and on that of my clients. Bit...

Martina Flor

Martina Flor

1. When did you realise you wanted to be a designer? I guess I grew into it while studying graphic design. Getting started was relatively intuitive to me, I was 18 after all, what did I know? I just thought that working in something visual, that involved working with...