Creative Learning

I trained as a graphic designer at Yale School of Art, after studying English at Cambridge University and clothing technology at the London College of Fashion. I was a designer in Michael Bierut’s team at Pentagram in New York for several years before returning to London to launch an international programme in design and architecture for the British Council, the United Kingdom’s international agency for cultural relations.

At the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) I directed a research programme to investigate how learning design skills could help people and communities become more resourceful and self-reliant. Its flagship project, trialing design training as an element of rehabilitation, was undertaken with the clinicians and patients of three national spinal injury units in partnership with leading university design departments.

I was a founding member of the Creative Education Trust executive in 2011. As Director of Programmes in its early years I was the originator and guardian of Knowledge Connected, the integrated programme for creativity that distinguishes the Trust’s 17 state schools in the post-industrial cities and coastal towns of the UK.

Author of A Few Minutes of Design and The Writing Deck for Princeton Architectural Press, I am keen to help as many people as possible overcome barriers to their creativity. I believe that people know more than they think they do about all kinds of trades and professions, including design.