Art Foundation: Stroud
Product and Furniture Design: Kingston University

Sri Lanka – Toy Designer:
Gospel House Handicrafts is a small fair-trade company situated on the west coast of Sri Lanka. It was established primarily to provide jobs for unemployed Sri Lankans in the field of making wooden toys and handicrafts.
In 2012 I spent 4 months working in Sri Lanka with the team at GHH developing over forty products for their new range. It was an incredible learning experience to see first hand the many different manufacturing stages to produce each toy, from treating the wooden planks to screen printing, hand cutting to spray painting. The challenge was to create new and exciting designs which could be cheaply and easily made using the existing machinery from their workshop. As all the toys are exported, it was crucial each passed strict EU toy regulations tests.
We made all sorts of puzzles, pull along toys, dolls houses and hanging mobiles. Working with such wonderful people and on such interesting projects made the 4 months hugely enjoyable. Hopefully I'll be able to do something similar in the future.

India – Home-ware Designer
In 2013 I approached a company based in England who had been selling some of the toys I had worked on in Sri Lanka. They asked if I would go and help develop a new range of products for fair-trade company Noah's Ark Handicrafts based in Moradabad India. I was more than happy to accept.
Mordabad city, often nicknamed 'Brass City', is famous for its brass work: chances are if you have any brass candle sticks at home they were made here. During my 2 months however I worked with many different skilled artisan using a variety of different materials; Ceramic bowls produced in Jaipur, glass workers in Firozabad and carpenters in Uttarakhand. It was hard work and we struggled a lot to design and produce products with a high quality finish suitable to be sold worldwide but it also hugely enjoyable and an amazing experience. I'd be straight back on the plane if I had the offer to go again.

Current Job – Product Design/Arnold Plastics - England
Currently working as a product designer and developer for Arnold EP, a plastic fabricator based in England. We manufacture everything onsite so it's great to design for and seeing all the different plastic manufacturing techniques I'd learnt about during my Design Technology Lessons. Everyday day we'll be working on something new: Borris bikes, bomb disposal and ballistic visors, Red Bull F1 pit interior, 2.5 meter high advent calendars for hotels in Bucharest …. always new, often bizarre, but always brilliant...