I keep getting people on both Tumblr and Behance asking me about my ‘journey’ into Design and what inspired me to be a designer. If I may be frank, I had never considered design before starting college. I left school at sixteen and went to study Carpentry and Joinery at Hastings College. After finishing the City & Guilds course, I was soon looking for apprenticeships. Having found nothing and with September approaching, some of my friends suggested going back into education and studying A-Levels.

In August 2008, a week before the colleges went back for the autumn term, I enrolled at a local Sixth Form. I chose to study Product Design, Drama, Art and Economics. Yet after a week of studying Economics I thought, “Why the hell am I studying this?” So I changed courses and the only one that appealed to me was Graphic Design. I soon spent more time doing Design work than other subjects, and as a result, almost failed the other subjects. After completing, and passing, my A-Levels, I decided to attend a local University to study a Foundation Degree in Design. I chose the shorter course as I was still unsure of what I wanted to do as a career. When at the sixth form, we never really learnt about the history of design or any typography for that matter. However at University I learnt more and more and knew then that this is what I wanted to do as a career.

 I never had that moment however, like children do, “When I grow up I’m going to be a fireman!” I doubt many children say, “When I grow up I’m going to be a typographer!” Even through secondary school I never thought about design, I wasn’t aware of it. At secondary school, we only ever studied Fine Art and Andy Warhol. Students don’t learn about design during their GCSEs. However, as more of us become aware of design and its effects, Design should be put onto the curriculum or at least integrated within Art. Studying carpentry has definitely had an effect on how I work as a designer. I have always wanted to take projects further and off the screen to make them tactile, tangible and most of all physical. I once sat for hours sewing printed fabric together to make an umbrella.

  I never had a ‘journey’ or if I did, it wasn’t planned. I just fell into Design’s coffee fuelled embrace and liked it. Almost five years after I spontaneously enrolled at a sixth form, I am now in my third year studying in London and my education is coming to an end. Up next, the big, wide world of the industry. You never know though, I may end up being a Doctor or a Baker or a Gardner. Probably not.