Given that it's a little quite these days, I figured it time to get to know a little about what influences people round here. So to start things of, how about what was the first thing that awakened your interest in the world of design [or art, photography or what ever]. We will no doubt end up with a list of the most influential designs/designers or products created over the last 50 years or so.

Seeing as it?s my hair brain idea I guess I'll have to start.

POP Swatches
Around the age of 14 we were introduced to the world of design in high school though the in thing at the time Pop Swatches [a bit like the iPod these days]. Never looked back since.

For those not old enough to remember [I'm not that old am I?] here?s a link to jog you memory
http://www.squiggly.com/swatch/p/subcat/s/pop

I still have my first and only pop swatch [pity it no longer works] - f*%k me they still have the little bugger [1991 - Blue Night], might just have to go retro

I got into design at school - spending nearly all of my 6th year in the art studio. Originally I was into photography and had sent my application away to Edinburgh College of Art to pursue it. I was on the verge of sending away my portfolio when I released I wanted to do graphic design instead. Seemed like everyone else knew that I should have been a designer before I knew!

Anyway... now I'm a designer with 6 years experience behind me and I still get to do photography, so it all came good in the end. Happy days!

Started with a lucky break at 15 when I got the opportunity of designing a puzzle magazine cover that was a national magazine for a very small magazine publisher. I guess I have never got over the thrill of seeing my work in the shops. Even though I have seen things I have designed all over the world the buzz is still there. A really scary thought is that means I am now coming up for 30 years a designer, and you feel old remembering Swatches. You can see what I do at

I pretty much got into design - before I knew what design was... so didn't really get inspiration from somewhere - and decide that was what I wanted to do... I just sort of got sucked into it by forces unknown.

I left college (media and film) looking for a career within TV & film production. Ended up working for a very small production company... who, after a year or so working soley on tv production (gameshows, training videos etc) - started taking on design work, mostly for print, and the odd website. Since we were a small outfit - I basically had to teach myslef how to design... and that's where it took off for me. The more and more I designed, th emore and more I decided that this was what I wanted to do.

Anyway... eventually I left for a bigger career, joined a large design house - and that's where I really started to learn about what design was. Mostly came about through working closely with some top designers.

Having done an Art & Design at GCSE level, I moved into doing an A-Level in Art & Design and a AS Level in 3D Art & Design. From there I went on to do a BTEC National Diploma in Graphic Design for a Foundation Year at university. Having completed this, I embarked on a Graphic Design degree.

Things got caught short though. I was still very interested in design but the Internet was starting to take hold and being very computer literate started learning markup and applying my graphic skills in building websites.

I left university without completing my degree to work with the web and have never looked back. Gradually, as time has gone on, my graphics have left me; my attention firmly in programming which I have always loved. Both The Designers Network (the founding site) and The Designers Forum are alive as useful resources and a hobby. I still enjoy all aspects of design and it is only through lack of time I no longer actively practice.

I've always been inclined to draw, even when I was a kid. I remember designing the perfect bike in a notepad my Gran got for Christmas one year and a cool pair of trainers, which led me into drawing a lot of trainers as still lifes as the years went on. So I suppose I'd say that a mixture of the notepad, and having art in the bones, my Grandad and Dad (different sides of the family) are a painter and drawer respectivly was probably all the creative juices I'd need to get into design.

I think I was 12 when I realised I wanted to be a designer. I didn't know what of but I knew that's what I wanted to do.

Well i too like to think i have some inherited talent, both my dad and his father were aerospace engineers and i like to think that involves some artistic talent.

Anyhow, I'd always been in to drawing and painting as a kid, i drove my parents crazy painting on my bedroom walls when i lived at home and was always in the school studio.
However my art teacher and i had a falling out when i told her i had no intention of staying on to do Art A-Level because it would make me no money in the long run.

So i went and studied IT, but as luck would have it i was asked to help on the college magazine, so i found DTP, typography and in turn found the internet.
From there my IT teacher helped me find a job in a small studio, and as they say the rest is history.

So i guess i can be put in to the "fell in to design" bracket, but I'm very glad i did... And i haven't forgotten my roots, i still make art when i can and i got my fine art degree, finally.

Oh, well, I started it all by buying my first SLR camera, which I abused madly by searching all kinds of composition, form and color possibilities in the nature. And then there were those white boxes called computer. One website there, another graphic piece here... and eventually it all came together and I landed studying Digital Media Design in Germany and now I'm freelancing by doing what I actually like - amazing... well, most of the time.

Just knew my future would be working with pictures, for as long as I remember. Words and numbers don't do so much for me. Whether that's nature or nuture who can say?