Category: Design

Shapes Design is my own homeware studio, and its identity was built as a complete system: a geometric pattern language, a minimal typographic voice, and a product range where every touchpoint, from the calendar grid to the shipping box, follows the same rules.

The system

The identity rests on three pieces: the Essential Shapes pattern (a modular arrangement of circles, squares and lines used across stationery and packaging), a strict minimal typography used most visibly in the Minimal Calendar line, and a palette of architectural neutrals with seasonal accents.

Products and touchpoints

The Outlines product line reduces homeware to wireframe geometry: tealight holders and frames in brass rod. The same language carries through to journals, phone cases and seasonal campaign graphics.

Identity system, packaging, e-commerce artwork and campaigns, all designed in-house: Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop and the WordPress storefront.

Since 2017 I have run an independent consulting practice building and maintaining WordPress and WooCommerce sites for clients and for my own ventures. The work covers the full stack of a small-business web presence: IA and wireframing, theme customisation, WooCommerce configuration, payment gateways, SEO and analytics, hosting and performance.

Working examples

Two live sites show the range. One Shot One Ride is a trading apparel store built around its own brand identity. The WoW Review is a content and reviews site with a custom structure and monetised layout. This portfolio site itself is the third example, rebuilt with the Twenty Twenty-Five block theme.

WordPress, WooCommerce, Figma and Adobe XD for design, Photoshop and Illustrator for assets, plus the everyday plumbing: analytics, Search Console, cPanel and migration work.

Between 2014 and 2016, Goosebumps Lab operated one of London’s busier 3D Hubs nodes out of Hackney Downs Studios: hundreds of bespoke fabrication orders for clients who needed parts printed fast and right.

What clients sent us

The order book ranged widely: drone frame components, architectural models, engineering jigs, fashion accessories and product prototypes, each with its own material and tolerance requirements.

The production side

Every order went through the same pipeline: pre-flight mesh repair (Netfabb, Meshmixer), slicing optimisation in Cura and Simplify3D, material consultation across PLA, ABS, PETG and specialty filaments, then printing, post-processing and QA before dispatch.

Rapid fabrication, machine maintenance and client service, all in-house.

A series of product concepts from my academic and early independent years: glassware for Alkimia, the Hestia living product, tapware for Newform, and the P3 e-coffeemaker small appliance. Together they show how my form language developed before the studio years.

Form studies

CMF exploration, surface modelling and rendering in Rhino, 3ds Max and AutoCAD.

A photorealistic visualisation of a building in Lyon, produced for architect Francesco Trisorio: the existing context was photographed, the building modelled in 3D, and the renders matched back to the real views.

3D modelling, rendering and photomatch post-production, presented as a four-board package.

Make Blood Cancer Visible was a public awareness installation in Paternoster Square, London: monumental red letters spelling the names of people affected by blood cancer, installed beneath St Paul’s Cathedral. It was designed and built at Paul Cocksedge Studio, where I ran much of the fabrication.

Workshop to square

Each name was built as a large-scale letter sculpture. My part covered the production chain: CNC foam cutting of the polystyrene letterforms, acrylic laser cutting, moulding, carpentry, welding and spray painting, plus the spreadsheets and inventories that kept the workflow moving.

In place

Fabrication and production coordination at Paul Cocksedge Studio.

For the Tommy x Gigi collection launch at Selfridges, Elemental Design was asked to turn the campaign concepts into physical retail: window displays, display tanks and a pop-up environment. My role was to bridge concept and workshop.

Concept to fabrication

I translated the creative direction into technical drawings and 3D models of the display pieces, produced assembly instructions for the workshop, and prepared the CAD/CAM files for CNC machining. The proposal was delivered as an eight-board presentation package.

Installed

Concept development, technical documentation and fabrication support at Elemental Design, 2017.

A parametric light sculpture proposed for an airport terminal in Abu Dhabi, developed as a visualisation project for Moritz Waldemeyer: a sweeping rib structure suspended above the concourse.

Algorithm to atmosphere

The surface was generated in Grasshopper as a single parametric definition, then rendered in 3ds Max and V-Ray. Day and night studies tested how the illuminated ribs would read against the terminal architecture.

Parametric modelling, environmental lighting studies and presentation renders.

Modular 3D printed cases for the Fairphone, designed and produced in small batches at Goosebumps Lab for the Fairphone community: a product that matched the phone’s repairable, sustainable ethos with on-demand manufacturing.

Parametric shells

The case geometry was parametric, built to the exact mechanical constraints of the phone. Texture variants, contour maps, bicycles, typography, could be generated on the same shell without remodelling, which made small-batch variety practical.

Parametric CAD, snap-fit tolerancing, FDM production and product photography, all in-house.

Hooke is a stool concept built around a single steel spring: the seat flexes under weight and returns, turning a static object into a small piece of mechanics.

Industrial styling study, modelled in Rhino and presented as a concept board.

Photorealistic interior visualisation of a shopping centre, built from the architect’s CAD plans. The job was to give the client a believable walk through the space before it existed.

From plans to atmosphere

The geometry was rebuilt in Rhino, lit and rendered in 3ds Max with V-Ray, then finished in Photoshop: people, shopfront glow and reflections composited to sell the ambient feel of the mall.

Presentation package of four boards designed in InDesign.

RE-Time is my graduate project at IED Milan, developed with Ideal Standard: a bathroom collection designed around the time we spend there, from quick morning rituals to slow evening ones.

The boards

Five-page presentation package designed in InDesign.

Lighting Circles is the mechanical heart of a Johnnie Walker installation engineered at Studio Waldemeyer: large light rings that hang from a ceiling rig and rotate slowly, painting ribbons of light through the space.

Suspended motion

My part was the mechanism that lets each ring spin smoothly while suspended: custom gear trains, 3D printed bearing blocks and laser-cut frames, all modelled, prototyped and iterated in the studio before the event build.

At the event

From mechanism prototypes to the installed rings at the launch event.

Elephant is a concept model for a metal sculpture, developed at Studio Waldemeyer: a freeform elephant skin resolved into hundreds of flat laser-cut panels joined along a parametric seam network.

From freeform to flat sheet

The point of the project was fabrication logic: Grasshopper panelises the curved volume into sheet-metal-ready pieces, and the junction detail keeps every plate aligned to its neighbours. The result reads as a single organic mass built from rational parts.

Modelled in Rhino and Grasshopper, rendered in Keyshot.

Yo-Yo is a 3D printed cable organiser designed and produced at Goosebumps Lab. USB and charging cables wrap around the body and stay tidy instead of knotting in a drawer.

Wind it up

A simple rotating wrap: the cable coils around the body, the connector parks in the slot. The geometry was tuned for FDM printing, so each piece comes off the Ultimaker ready to use, no assembly.

Modelled in Rhino, rendered in Keyshot, printed and photographed in the lab.

Huevo is a concept bathroom collection for CristalPlant, the Italian solid-surface material. Bathtub, washbasin and tap are generated from a single soft, egg-derived form: no edges, no breaks in the surface.

One form, one material

Solid surface lets a bathroom read as a single continuous object rather than an assembly of fittings. The Huevo family explores exactly that: the bathtub, basin and tap all come from the same shell language.

Modelled in Rhino, rendered in 3ds Max and V-Ray, presented in Illustrator.

Sugar Ball is a companion concept for Eridania: a spherical sugar bowl that splits open into two hemispheres. The simple gesture, twist and lift, hides the sugar inside a glossy coloured shell.

One gesture

No handles, no loose parts: the sphere itself is the container. The two shells meet along a clean equator line, and the glossy finish lets the object sit as a pop of colour on the table.

Concept development and presentation renders for Eridania.

Sugar Ghost is a concept sugar bowl developed for Eridania, the historic Italian sugar company. The brief was to reinterpret the archetype of the sugar bowl for a brand that has been on Italian tables since 1899.

A ghost under the lid

The design splits the object into a slim frame base and a soft covered lid with two red handles: a ghost-like shape that lifts off to serve. The covered form keeps the ritual of the classic sugar bowl while giving Eridania a distinctive object for the table.

Colour, material and finish

Modelled and rendered for Eridania R&D, with exploded views and CMF boards for the internal presentation.