My design career started in a paste-up room at a local newspaper. This traditional method involved developing long columns of text onto photographic paper, cutting with scalpels and pasting them with hot wax onto pages laid on glass plates. It was slow, physical, and occasionally bloody — and that tactile way of working has never left me.
From there I moved into commercial design, where I have spent over 25 years consulting with global enterprises, start-ups, universities and non-profits on complex UX research and design challenges. I am currently CXO at KiteEdge, working on graph-based AI solutions for creating and sharing knowledge. But the commercial work was always in conversation with something else.
During this period I worked closely with theatre practitioners and musicians, documenting performances and co-running a live music night. I regularly recorded at Cafe Oto in Dalston — a space that has since become well recognised for its contribution to the London music scene. Working with performers I became fascinated with the body and voice as a creative tool, including the generative relationship between the documentor in these encounters.
A friend once described me as a cross-disciplinary autodidact. The label is generous, but the reality is messier. I left university without a degree, convinced academic wasn’t for me. To test that, I completed an MA at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2015 as a mature student. In 2016 I was awarded an AHRC Design Star PhD scholarship. After pandemic and parental pauses, I completed my thesis in 2026.
My research draws on post-colonial feminist theory — particularly Gail Weiss and Sara Ahmed — to develop encounters as a strong concept for embodied design practice. Encounters foreground relational and intercorporeal forms of embodiment, while holding space for playfulness, surprise and serendipity. I collaborate with other embodied practitioners such as theatre performers and indoor bouldering route-setters, using our bodies and the space between them as a generative site of practice.
Whether I am envisioning digital platforms or standing body-to-body in a rehearsal space, the question is the same: what becomes possible in the encounter? How can I facilitate meaningful encounters with others, things and technologies and let that guide my engagement.
If you want to talk about how I can think, situate and do designerly things for your next project, get in touch.