Illustration is how I fell in love with art and design, and it's still a big part of who I am.
I did a foundation at Kingston, then a BA in Illustration at Bournemouth. Alongside that I started screen printing my drawings onto T-shirts under the name d1ttod1tto, paid for with hours in a sweaty call centre. Plenty of prints went wrong. When I took them to a stall, hundreds of people walked past wondering what Ditto even was, and that's when I started learning about logos and brands.
I kept sketchbooks through all of it, including one summer with no internet and no fixed address.
My university project was all about slang and its history: how inner London slang changed from cockney to Jafaican, right back to 16th-century English criminals, who had their own slang called cant. I spelled each word the way it sounds. I painted Sweeny Todd, rhyming slang for the Flying Squad, as two flying geese in police helmets.
Then the work started coming in. RWD Magazine commissioned me to illustrate the products for its review pages. I did work experience at Jelly London, including London Olympics pieces, and a commission of the Gallagher brothers. Graphic design came next, then art direction.
I never stopped drawing. Every label for The London Beer Factory is mine. I use AI every day now, and it gets me to more ideas, faster. But years of drawing are why I know which one to keep.
