Introducing Ben: Mid-weight Designer

So firstly, can you share a bit about your journey so far?

When I was younger I was very arty and always creating things. My grandparents were both artists and owned a farm. Gran was a painter and drawer, grandad was a wood worker, so that inspired me creatively. I spent a lot of time at their house, I’d turn up and the table would just be foiled with stuff ready for the day!

I always loved art at school. It was one of the only things that didn’t feel like school for me. It was an art teacher who mentioned graphic design to me in Y9, maybe because my art was often very graphic focused. I did a final piece with portraits of soldiers in the war, very large scale, using these thick black highlighter pens.  The nitty bitty side of painting. didn’t ever really hold much appeal for me. 

I always wanted to study art and design, I just didn’t know at that age that I could.

It sounds like you had a confident style from very early on. Tell us a bit about your University experience?

I studied Graphic Communication in Cardiff which worked out well as there are lots of larger scale design studios in Cardiff. I felt like the location gave me more options to other places in the South West too.

As part of my final year, we had a competition brief that we could apply for through D&AD. I won an award in response to our campaign on how to limit knife crime. It was very typographic-led and designed to help educate people on the issues of knife crime and the implications.

That year was all online due to Covid, so I didn’t get to collect the award in person or promote this in the normal way, which was hard, but the online part meant more people could view our end of work portfolios. Someone at Toward Studio saw mine and offered me a job. I was still in student accommodation at the time!

What drew you to Fiasco?

I’d followed Fiasco for a while since Uni. One of my friends did an internship here, it was also one that popped up a lot when I was considering places to work.

Fiasco felt aligned with my style. It’s always been aspirational for me, and the work seems to get better all time. A lot of the values seemed to align with me too, the B-Corp and team culture. Knowing you want to work with certain clients and not others, it can be hard to get that right with a business but having the courage to do that is something I really looked up to. 

What has influenced your approach to design over the years? What do you try to inject into the work you create?

I love bold design. That comes from a place of wanting to do something strategically. A big typeface isn’t just cool because it’s big, it’s about evoking a feeling.

I was always interested in the big, visceral stuff when I was younger. How to convey thoughts and feelings through punchy design. I like to look at other designers and studios from around the world that do this conceptually. 

What kind of projects most excite you?

I’ve never been too fussed to say  ‘I did XX for this massive company that everyone knows about.’ For me, the more interesting causes or rebrands are for companies that are slightly smaller, or that people might not know about. Or those that don’t have as big a voice. For example, social causes – the point is you can help them to become more well known through  a rebrand. That’s a more fulfilling job to have.

I like when you can get closer to certain companies and people too. It’s really nice to be able to get to know those brands.

My favourite project to date was at Design Dough. We did a free brand and website for Pikkle, a food catering company based in Cardiff. They’re really in touch with the local food community with a big focus on surplus and sustainability. It was exciting to give a brand we thought were doing great things a platform they may not have otherwise had.

Where do you find your inspiration?

I play a lot of sports and I’ve always been quite competitive, but I noticed my competitiveness didn’t come from wanting to beat the other team or players – it was about being the best that I could be. I think that pulls across into my work. It’s about pushing myself to be as good as I can be with every piece I do.

I listen to a lot of hip hop and jazz. That scene has always had a very expressive design, there’s a lot of that in sport too so I take a lot of visual inspiration from here.

Any advice to young designers starting out? What do you wish someone had told you?

I wish someone had told me straight out of University that I wasn’t as good as I thought I was and that the learning curve will be steep. At the end of Uni you have all this work you’re really proud of. That’s not to take away from any of that, but your achievements there can cloud you when you go into the real world of work.

Be open and look to learn. You’ve done three years of Uni and you probably learned what you think is a lot, but there’s so much that will come out of that first year in a new job. You don’t ever know everything and you can’t know everything. I take that as: “I can always be better.”